Talk:Ball lightning/Archive 1

message: Is it just me or does the picture of the Ball Lightning chasing a car look like a white balloon tied to the back of a car with some ribbons on it?
some labs managed to produce "sort of ball lightening" based on their own theories, e.g.
- ball of plasma produced by microwave interference produced by a lightening
- self-sustaining vortex of combustible gas!
these should be added to "theories of ball lightening"
----
Here's a news article about it:  Ziiv 12:44, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Ball lightning

message: I condensed the discussion of hydrogen/nitrites/nitrates plasmas quite a bit because I didn't understand it well enough to decide its scientific merit. For example, what is the recombination time? What is the degree of ionization? A reference would help a lot. (I'd also like a reference to that relatively recent theory involving fractal silicon structures.) Art Carlson 20:19, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Some collected references from 1990-1995 are at http://amasci.com/tesla/bllinspc.txt  I recall that the fractal theory came from Russia.--Wjbeaty 04:52, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  ionic plasmas 

message: I changed
"or rod-like with no dimension being much larger than the others"
to
"or rod-like with one dimension being much larger than the others"
because the first form didn't seem to be self-consistant. 192.171.162.101 10:06, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reports 

message: This article treats the topic as if it were well accepted scientific fact.  Regardless of individual belief or opinion on the truth of this phenomenon, more emphasis on the disputed nature of ball lightning should certainly be added to the article.  Further analysis and discussion can be added to either support or refute the phenomenon, but it is important to recognize that debate does exist.
: Is the existence of ball lightning really disputed anymore? At least in Sweden it seems nobody questions _the existence_ of ball lightning, but only how and why it is created, and how it could be recreated? According to an article written (in Swedish) by Dagens Nyheter and the Division for Electricity and Lightning Research at Uppsala University, "scientists where sceptical to the phenomenon [...] but as more and more people has experienced and reported ball lightnings the sceptics have been reduced to a minority" (my own, rough translation of a paragraph in ) 80.216.158.220 01:52, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Is there still a POV problem? 217.196.231.99 20:56, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I wouldn't say there is a POV problem anymore. The article clearly conveys the disputed nature of ball lightning's existence. Maybe the tag should be removed? Molimo 01:44, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Perhaps an additional section about the disbelief in ball lightning would be helpful, either right before or right after the 'Esoteric explanations' section. 12.158.58.94 19:23, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I did that. A section called Disbelief in Ball Lightning now exists, with research through links provided at the bottom of the page. I also removed the POV tag.TrogdorPolitiks 20:35, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm really not sure if I just saw ball lightning.  I saw basically this: a flashbulb type brightness about 1 foot in diameter in the dead center of the window to my right, after I saw it right on my left.  I definately felt it, or at least felt immense fear upon seeing it.  I at first thought a car had passed by, but that's actually impossible because it would be at an angle, there's no physical possible way for it to go directly through the house like a shotgun as it just was.  We have really big windows, and I went and asked if my sister saw it.  She said it was just lightning and described it similar, but didn't see two flashes.  I'm thinking she may have saw it while it was to my left (where her window is) and missed the other flash, to the right.  It may have been an odd occurrance, or ball lightning (it did have a direct shot if it was so it wouldnt have touched anything).  All it did was shock me as it was so unexpected. --TIB (talk) 06:37, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV 

message: Hi all. I am from tel aviv, Israel, and I saw a Ball lightning. can you people add a piska (picture) about Ball Lightning that saw in Israel? it can be part of alian in Israel
thanks anyway,
Israel.
:Hi, are you saying you have a photo of a ball lightning you would like to add to the article? Dieter Simon 00:07, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Israel 

message: Cut from article:
:Although speculation continues, there is now agreement that it is neither mythical nor purely psychological.  
Agreement by whom? In other words, who says it's neither mythical nor psychological? Let's name a scientific (or other) source who's willing to go out on a limb and endorse the reality of the phenomenon.
Anecdotes and literary references don't mean much. In 1805, people still thought getting soaked in a chilly rain could cause a "cold", but this was before modern immunology and Pasteur's germ theory of disease. --Uncle Ed 15:21, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Plenty of people still believe this, for the record.  If ball lightning truly is a rare phoenomenon, would it not be expected that anecdotes would vastly outweigh the evidence?  We've been writing history for thousands of years, but have only developed an understanding of electricity (and of course photography) in the last 150...  If there had been cameras in 1500 perhaps we would have a photograph by now.  I'm a natural skeptic but there's no cause to dismiss this yet.  Rainman420 18:45, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't mean to criticize, Uncle Ed, however you realise that staph and strep are predominantly in the human nose and given cold conditions the capilliaries of the nasal region (like all others) contract thus disallowing immuno defenses against the omnipresent bacterial infection thus increasing the likelyhood of overpopulation of micro-flora and fauna to a degree that one is succeptable to the common cold should they 'get soaked in a chilly rain', right?  I don't mean to detract from the point you're making, however most 'old wives tales' or 'nagging mothers reactions' (perhaps more to the point) tend to have some scientific basis on further analyses.  Jachin 03:44, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Acceptance and sources

message: This image is labelled as a "real photo" but the talk page for the image casts doubt on its reality. Perhaps we should mention something about the "student" who supposedly took the picture, in the article rather than showing the image as if having a picture proves something. 
See also .  --Uncle Ed 18:48, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Regardless, it's a shame there's not a picture on this article yet.    So, . Gobonobo 08:30, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Image dispute

message: The image is illustrative, even if it is a fake.  There is an image of Nessie on the Loch Ness Monster page even though it may be a fake.  I added a caption that informs the reader that it may not be a real photo.  I believe the photo definitely adds a lot of value to the article.
Robartin 20:43, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Image restored

message: I noticed this clip on Metacafe that might be ball lightning.  You can see a pulsating ball on the left near the end of the video.  The ball floats for a bit before disappearing in what looks like a bolt of lightning. --Silvaran 01:35, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Link to possible ball lightning video 

message: I observed ball lightning in the early morning hour of 2:15 a.m. June 27, 2006 during a windy rain storm while driving on NY State Rte. 23A in Greene County near Lexington.  This is a very remote region in the Catskill Mountains.  It was a ball of intensly bright white light in the sky just above the trees and lasted for approximately 6 seconds. It hovered in one spot and snuffed out similar to how the moon, over a period of days, slowly turns into a finger nail shape and then fades to black.  It was very bright and made no sound that I heard (I was in a car).  I was bone sober because I was going to work at a reservoir dam during the storm event.  There was no other traffic or distractions.  There was no "regular" lightning at the time.  the ball was about the size of a basketball. 161.185.1.100 19:34, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ball Lightning Eye Witness 

message: The longest dimension observed is between fifteen and forty centimeters.
:That's a pretty wide range. Does this mean that the largest ball of lightning alledgedly observed is somewhere between 15 and 40 cm, or does it mean that all alledged reports of ball lightning is between 15 and 45 cm. Also, do we have a source for this? Ian Manka Talk to me! 09:25, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  From "Reports" 

message: I happened by, thinking of writing an article on ball lighting, when what did I find but a page on it. The introduction had a few too many qualifiers, and the middle about foo fighters didn't read quite as I would have liked it, so I cleaned it up a bit. 
--Dranzini 19:34, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stylistic cleanup. 

message: Interestingly, the German wikipage has far better style in scientific writing including references to scientific explanations. Guidod 10:18, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scientific Writing 

message: The black hole explanation having been featured in new scientist perhaps needs to be extracted from the esoteric section and placed into it's own.--Energman 11:40, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  black hole 

message: === Creating ball lightning ===
lab creates lgihtning for as long as eight seconds
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/fundamentals/mg19325863.500?DCMP=NLC-nletter&nsref=mg19325863.500 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.11.132.253 (talk) 17:50, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I added this article as an external link. - JustinWick 01:05, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

text: First of all, I do not think your tone is helpful.  Lets have some less aggressive language to people just trying to help here.  Second of all, is there a Wikipedia policy that states that because something is in the references section (and thus supporting a specific part of the article) means that it should not have an entry in the external links section?  I didn't see the NS ref because I was looking at external links.  Also, the reference to the online article is lame - it should use the appropriate citation as per my prior edit. - JustinWick 19:11, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Count it up. I cleaned up the redundant info not once, not twice, not three times, not even four times, but a total of five times! The clear language seemed necessary to get your attention. As for policy, I think this is pretty clear: Sites that have been used as references in the creation of an article should be linked in a references section, not an external links section. I don't understand what you consider "lame" about the reference. Is it that you think we should include the name of the journalist that wrote the news article? --Art Carlson 20:46, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Brazil / Silicon / New Scientist 

message: lab creates lgihtning for as long as eight seconds
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/fundamentals/mg19325863.500?DCMP=NLC-nletter&nsref=mg19325863.500 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.11.132.253 (talk) 17:50, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I added this article as an external link. - JustinWick 01:05, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Creating ball lightning 

message: I posted a slashdot comment containing a link to this article (2nd post, modded up) so keep on the lookout for vandals --⁪frothT 12:54, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  slashdotted 

message: http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/14/0317251 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Gavin86 (talk • contribs) 18:24, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lightening ball created in lab 

message: I integrated this reference into the article as soon as it came out. Various people, who apparently don't take the time to read the article, keep adding a second reference. Stop it! --Art Carlson 08:37, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: First of all, I do not think your tone is helpful.  Lets have some less aggressive language to people just trying to help here.  Second of all, is there a Wikipedia policy that states that because something is in the references section (and thus supporting a specific part of the article) means that it should not have an entry in the external links section?  I didn't see the NS ref because I was looking at external links.  Also, the reference to the online article is lame - it should use the appropriate citation as per my prior edit. - JustinWick 19:11, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Count it up. I cleaned up the redundant info not once, not twice, not three times, not even four times, but a total of five times! The clear language seemed necessary to get your attention. As for policy, I think this is pretty clear: Sites that have been used as references in the creation of an article should be linked in a references section, not an external links section. I don't understand what you consider "lame" about the reference. Is it that you think we should include the name of the journalist that wrote the news article? --Art Carlson 20:46, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  ''Knock it off!'' 

message: It sounds like a plausible hypothesis that some of the reports of ball lightning in the laboratory (and in nature as well?) result from weld spatter. But if it is your own idea, however good, then it is original research and cannot be included in Wikipedia. If you can provide a verifiable source for this idea, then we can put it back in. --Art Carlson 08:55, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  weld spatter 

message: I removed the following paragraph - not sure how much of it was actually valid...
Ball lightning really occurs due to the electric discharge of the positively charged sky and the negatively charged earth. The formation of Ball is due to the friction between the atmospheric molecules of air. The lightning when Starts coming down to earth, it takes few milli seconds of time to form a ball of semi solid that is a collidal state of Air molecules,heat,fire,light. The ball may be of different sizes. This is based on the effect that was created by the Earth's terrestrial magnetic field..
Source: Discovery Channel. Mail me in case of any doubt.
krishnachaitanya_nasa@yahoo.co.in
krishnachaitanya.jpl.nasa@gmail.com
BlueRaja 08:52, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  spam 

message: In 1969, when I was 9, I had an encounter with ball lightning. We lived in a rowhouse in Philadelphia, PA. Behind the house was an unusally large open driveway and garage area. Electrical and phone lines ran on the houses at roofline level. Sometime that August we had a really bad storm. After things quieted down I went to bed. As I lay there, facing the window I could see a pulsating yellowish glow coming from the right, growing brighter. Then a ball of light approx twelve inches around  bounce-floated by as if attracted by the wires. I jumped out of bed and ran to the window. It smelled like ozone and hissed slightly. I watched it until it vanished around the corner of the houses about two hundred feet away. It was whiteish yellow and was clearly glowing. I have had a lifelong interest in meterology since that day with no interest prior to that time.(67.165.4.47 01:39, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ball Lightning sighting 

message: This is the current introduction: "Ball lightning reportedly takes the form of a glowing, floating object often the size and shape of a basketball, but it can also be golf ball sized or smaller. It is sometimes associated with thunderstorms, but unlike lightning flashes arcing between two points, which last a small fraction of a second, ball lightning reportedly lasts many seconds. There have been some reports of production of a similar phenomenon in the laboratory, but some still disagree on whether it is the same phenomenon."
It does not tell the reader just what ball lightning is. It tells what it looks like, which is nice, but WHAT is it?VDZ 21:09, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd say the article as a whole makes it pretty clear that it's still a total mystery. Scientists have not yet confirmed ball lightning's nature or substance, or officially managed to reproduce it. Multiple possibilities are mentioned, including ionized plasma, an electric induction phenomenon, or an optical illusion (although cites are still needed on some of these). All that we know for sure, therefore, is what it looks like — rather like how we knew what X-rays were like and what they did before figuring out what they are. \sim Lenoxus " * " 16:09, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Introduction: What is ball lightning? 

message: Substituted at 20:05, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment