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How to prove the truth of our ideas about the world? Where people know what they know? About this reflects the Leningrad scientist and writer, doctor of physico-mathematical Sciences I. M. Imyanitov.

In 1769 the Spaniard Juan Crespi told about the huge trees growing on the slopes of the Sierra Nevada in California.

"This is an incredible giants! The trunk of the tree not girth nor 5, nor 10, nor even 20 people holding hands" - he wrote to Madrid.

But, alas, the report was forgotten. In 1848, when the California gold rush began, again there were reports about the unusual giants. But gold miners did not believe. In 1875, at the exhibition in Philadelphia was shown drank out of a tree trunk with a diameter of 10 meters. But the Americans considered the specimen a fake. Now in the reality of the existence of the giant sequoias believe all.

There was a time when stories about meteorites was seen as the fictions of ignorant peasants. It was considered obvious that the top, of the gaseous atmosphere from the emptiness of space, no rocks, no iron can not fall. From the Museum's collections was discarded samples of meteorites as knockoff that feeds the superstition.

...Until recently it was unclear whether there were ball lightning. It would seem that thousands of witnesses and evidence of its existence dedicated to her notes and articles in Newspapers and magazines do not give grounds for doubt. For example, one, two, three witnesses could be wrong, but to thousands! Unbelievable...

June 24, 1947, Amateur pilot reported that he met in flight is quite a mysterious subject. Newspaper reporter, to whom he said this, wrote that the pilot was seen "flying plate". After this message the number who saw "flying saucers" and even flew them was to grow uncontrollably. One of them enterprising American "orbited" the moon and stocked a number of useful information about space. Other "captured" by Earthmen on Venus and Mars. The inhabitants of "Skeet" chatted with the inhabitants of the Earth. In Paris even hosted the Congress of the people met with the owners of "plateaus". So far made fans of sensations wild imagination.

But many witnesses didn't lie. They observed certain atmospheric phenomena. The number of people who saw them, these days, is approaching 10 million.

So how is it to know whether there are in the nature of ball lightning, "flying saucers," etc.? As a General skilled part of mankind may become convinced of the justice of their knowledge?

The process of truth is usually non-trivial ways. Moreover, the amount of evidence "for" and "against" is not a decisive argument, otherwise the Sun still revolved around the Earth. Not a simple way in which the ideas of individuals become the thoughts of mankind, and these collective thoughts reveal the secrets of nature.

To each of us, and often come thoughts and observations, from which can be born inventions and discoveries, stories, and poems, new work practices and the knowledge of the unknown laws of nature. Come and die, photonow in the noise of life, streams of thoughts, random questions, urgent matters - in what is called everyday life. To a thought or observation is not lost, you should be able to return to them again and again, to compare them with the ideas and observations of others.

The existence of ball lightning was in doubt because of these glowing balls floating in the atmosphere and, therefore, the law of Archimedes having a specific gravity as air, about 1 gram per liter - was made unexpectedly large energy.

November 5, 1936 in the British newspaper "daily mail" published a letter to the editor:

"Sir! During a thunderstorm I saw a large glowing Orb descended from the sky. It struck our house, cut the telephone wires, lit the window frame and then disappeared in a tub of water that stood under the window. Water boiled in a few minutes, but when it is sufficiently cool to be able to look for the ball, I couldn't find in a barrel.

W. Morris. Dorston. Herford".

Newspaper reports experts are not always inclined to trust, and the English scientist Charles Boyce decided to investigate on the spot. He learned that the balloon was the size of a large orange, that is 10-15 centimeters in diameter, and the barrel was about four gallons, that is 18-20 liters of water. After appropriate calculations revealed that the energy released from the fireball, ranged from 4 to 16 megajoules and the mass of ball lightning was equal to one gram.

A lot or a little? If the substance of ball lightning would be possible to fill a tank car, the energy contained in the tank, enough for a trip around the world.

Maybe misjudged the energy of ball lightning? Assume that the water in the barrel warmed normal lightning that did not see the Morris, but the fireball was already in hot water. It is unclear, however, why is the water boiled for several minutes, and not only at the time of the lightning strike. But you never know what can affect the results of individual experience... Not because the authors unjustified theories usually try to declare the properties of ball lightning, not explained by their theories, non-existent.

To explain all the properties of ball lightning really hard. In addition to its unexpectedly large energy, it is difficult to understand why the fireball rises, like a balloon filled with hot air, why this ball is not expanding, as it always happens with any other gas balls. How is ball lightning? Why it is relatively long there? Explaining one or two properties that come to the surprising conclusion that these explanations exclude all other...

Therefore there is a natural in such cases, the assumption may be that ball lightning does not, and the eyewitnesses were misled by other phenomena in the atmosphere - the burning of swamp gas, lights Elmo? Or residual effects following the bright flashes of linear lightning?

To prove that ball lightning is real, it would be possible, by comparing the readings of a group of witnesses. But the social coexistence of a certain group of people presupposes the existence of common fallacies. For example, in France, do not eat mushrooms, and we in the village with a biased to the mushrooms. A "generic" signs, the interpretation of dreams? In psychology a well-known effect of so-called "delirium for two," when the narrator has so much trust in the alleged incident with him the events that others think that they were parties to it.

It remains to compare the observations of several independent groups of people, and if they match, it will be the most convincing evidence.

In 1970, our country has published a book "Beyond the law", which the authors completed the questionnaire had seen a ball of lightning. Responses - there were more than a thousand - cross-referenced with the survey data in the United States and finally with the data collected through notes and articles, printed in the last 100-150 years. So managed to compare the three collective portrait of ball lightning, obtained independently from each other at different times in different economic and social conditions, from people with a variety of creative activity and the desire to disseminate information. It turned out that all three portraits describe the same object: size, color, shape, lifetime, conditions of formation and destruction are quite similar. Close to these portraits and the newly drawn data of a survey conducted by the magazine "Science and life".

Now you can with great certainty say that ball lightning really exists. But what about her abnormally large energy? If we start from the view of today's science, it can not exist. The classic conflict. The history of science is replete with examples of how incredible and likely interchanged, marking yet another milestone passed on the path of knowledge. As everything is ball lightning?

Here pertinently such comparison. In a large flask with gas there's a small hole. The gas molecules, moving randomly in the flask, hit the wall, bounce off, hit again, but sooner or later, find the hole and fly outside of the flask. And we, the people: all the time "prostukivaniem" wall of prohibitions and impossibilities that surround our world today. Scientists and students, engineers and workers, teachers and farmers offer new options to explain the nature of ball lightning. Probably this is a reflection of the General law of mankind's desire to go beyond existing knowledge. And there is no doubt that the properties of ball lightning and the General laws of its existence will be clarified.

One more question - about the existence of "flying saucers". Elaborated on his "Truth" in the article "the Legend of aliens," March 2, 1980

Let's try and apply our method of collective portraits. It turns out that descriptions of the structures seen "flying saucers", and the appearance of their inhabitants, according to different witnesses, very, very different.

For each technical era there is some optimization of the characteristics of structures. A resident of the nineteenth century would not have seen, for example, substantial differences in the designs of modern aircraft. Therefore, the dissimilarity of the structures of "flying saucers" could be observed only in the case if the Earth had begun a pilgrimage of aliens from different parts of the Universe.

This probably would explain the differences and the enormous creatures who inhabit them. But probably even the authors of science fiction novels will not venture to suggest that in a space stretching millions of light years, in the time interval length of a few earthly years, we come ambassadors from different parts of the Universe.

Translated by «Yandex.Translator»