How Lightning Works

while ago, like probably ten years ago. They did some of these sixties icons that passed away early as old people, and like, really realistically, it's pretty funny. Yeah, I don't recall that at all. And I've watched a lot of TV where I used to I think it was a magazine and pronounce oh, I read a lot of magazines.

Oh Fair used to alert for, used to alert um. So. Riders on the Storm was released on the nineteen seventy one album Ellie Woman, which we would imagine is available at a wide variety of retailers online and at break and mortar stores. Yeah. Great song. Yeah, and I'm kind of over a lot of the Doors. But I like that song, man, I go It's like, how I imagine a lot of people are with Zeppelin. It's like, oh, I love Zeppelin. I'm in sixth grade. Um, and then it just kind of goes away. But then you get

older and you're like, wow, they really were great. That didn't happen to be with Zeppelin. I got over him after sixth grade, you know that. But the Doors, that's happened to me. You're back into them again. Well, I mean I just constantly am like in a state of coming in or out of really appreciating the Doors. But for the most part it's solidified as jelled. I love the Doors. You know, if you want to keep that intact, do yourself a favor and don't ever read any of

Jim Morrison's poetry books. I have I have. Have you ever heard American Prayer? It's like one of the coolest things anyone's ever made. I'm not a fan of his poetry. Well, I mean, his songs were poetry. Writers on the Storm is a poem set to music. He's the Lizard King. Yeah, you can do anything, right, Um, So Chuck, have you heard of a guy named Roy Sullivan. Yeah, I remember him from being a kid, do you really Yeah? From the old Guinness Book Record. Uh huh. I must have

skipped over his entry because I've read those two. I remember when they come out and you'd be like, oh my god. It would be like the Scholastic Book Fair, which amounted to a couple of like cards with books on him out the hallway and some guy who didn't recognize standing there selling them. Um. I missed that one, but let's tell everybody else. I haven't looked him up since then, but if I remember correctly, he had the

record for being struck right lightning. Yeah, Roy Sullivan. He was a ranger park ranger at Shenandoah National Park, okay um and he died in Night three. In between nineteen forty and nineteen seventy seven, he was struck seven times, struck by lightning seven times. And actually there's two of his rangers stets and hats that he was wearing while he was struck that are in the Guinness World Record. I guess museums and they have like burnt holes in them, right, yeah,

Well you're just smiling. I remember seeing the picture. I could picture it in my head. He did not die of being struck by lightning. He died what a full six years after the last time he was struck. Yeah, from like plugging in something in his house and getting shocked. He's like stripped on a banana peal Right, um, so it's it's I guess I bring this up because we're talking about lightning, and you brought up a really excellent point that his stets and hat was burned, but this

guy survived. Even the lightning is many, many, many times more powerful than you know, a typical industrial electrocution voltage that will just typically kill anybody. Lightning frequently people survive. As a matter of fact, like two thirds of people who are struck by lightning survive between two thirds depending on who you ask. That's pretty good. So I am very excited about this one. Classic. I love natural phenomena. I do too. I love earth sciences. I don't know

I do because I get it. Once you get it, it's like geometry, Like once you get geometry, you can't get geometry, and all of a sudden, this whole segment of of the of nature just becomes clear to you. Well, I'm glad you're covering this side of the love because I don't have it. You don't know. I mean, I think it's neat enough, but I'm not I'm not as into the earth sciences at the very least. The pictures in this article are really, really awesome. Did you get

to see some of them? I mean those are pretty, very pretty black and whiten. That's still worth looking at that all those leaders If you want to go, if you want to go to the website how stuff Works dot com and type and lightning, it will bring up a lot of these pictures, but in color. We just don't print in color here occasionally, But do you if it's something that I think should be in color, I like to preserve Cian go Alright, So Chuck, let's talk lightning,

shall we? Sure you got your statman role? Did you read that one thing? The NASA article. There's some stats in there that I thought you'd just have a bonanza with. I didn't get to it. Oh, buddy, all right, I'll play the stat man role there because there there were some good stats in there. Do you want me to start out with a few, Chuck? I between between this one's study of lightning strikes between ninety found that let's see nine thousand, eight hundred and eighteen people were struck

by lightning in that time. Three thousand, two hundred and thirty nine died died immediately like it was like, you're just struck by lightning. You're over. Um that that's got to be like a direct strike, right, all of them are direct strikes as far as I understand, Yes, we're all direct strikes. Like you can be struck directly like uh, ranger Roy and he survived. Um. Men are four times

likelier than women to be struck by lightning. Um. The two thirds of lightning casualties occurred between twelve pm and four pm, with the maximum at four pm. Yes. Uh, most of the most lightning casualties happened on a Sunday or with and Wednesday is the second most frequent day, and then July is the peak month. Florida is the state that has the most reported lightning strikes for people.

So if it's four pm on a Wednesday in July and you're in Florida, uh, and you're a man holding like a golf club, kiss your but combining the good Lord would never stop the best game of golf, I think, Uh. I remember in a different podcast, we talked about the

fourth of July actually being the number one day. I think I remember that as well, and I think that's part and partial to the fact that July is the biggest month and there are way more people outside recreating your bodies of water on the fourth of July, which you know, water of course could help. Yeah. I knew this dude who public who actually printed the the alternative paper that I helped found, and uh, he would say

that he was vacating. We're gonna vacate for two weeks to me and the family every going down to Disney World to vacake. That's pretty funny. The only little cool factoids I have are lightning is not necessarily always white or white ash yellow and has to do with the background. Yeah, and that lightning is only an inch y Yeah. I saw it was one to two inches in diameter. Yeah, that's it. And it's hot six degrees or six times hotter than the surface of the sun. I saw sixty. Yeah,

I'd say that's in the same range. I mean, that's six that's not much when you're up that I yeah, it'll fry an egg for sure. Um, So you you say that there are some cool fact toys associated with lightning. I say that lightning as a whole is one cool factoid made up of smaller component factoids. Yea. And also I'm sure somebody's can be like you guys used the word factoid wrong, but we will decimate that person alright. Uh, do we need to start with with clouds since we've

covered that so thoroughlier. I feel like we do because with this process of cloud formation it is part and parcel with lightning formation. They think we should really point out here, man that it's not just this article, it's not just how stuff works. That says that scientists aren't really sure how all this happens. Um NASA says, so the the um, oh, what's the what's the National Laboratory begins with the A. Man, well, anyway, one of the

National Laboratory says though that I write about UM. So basically, we don't fully understand how lightning forms, but it's invisible. We have some good guesses it occurs within the second So it's like, it's not the easiest thing in the world to study. No, it's really not, you know about it. We can recreate it, which is pretty neat. Okay, so UM. But yes, let's start with precipitation in the water cycle. Right,

You've got um water say here on the Earth's surface. Um, when heat is transferred from the environment, remember he always goes from something that's warm to something that's cold. That's how heat transfer occurs. Something doesn't lose its cold, it gains heat, right, that's right. Um. So when that happens, water can vaporize and rise up into the atmosphere. That's a VA operation. And once it reaches a certain point, it's going to lose its heat to the external environment.

It's gonna turn back into water. It's gonna fall back down to the ground. In the foreign precipitation, that's condensation, right, So it's either going to get slightly chilly and be rained, or it's gonna get really chilly and the snow or freezing rain. Right. So, if you get enough water vapor going up, and you get enough um condensation starting to come down and they start knocking into each other. This is what scientists think. Um, they can start knocking electrons

from one another. The electrons are gonna keep going down, They're going to um stay say as a cloud forms, they're gonna they're gonna accumulate around the bottom of the cloud like a little, a little puffy cloud couch there that at the bottom of the clouds all tuck the just settle in and nestle down. And then for for just for this um example sake, think of positively charged particles, the ones that are now missing their electrons um are just lighter, so they're gonna accumulate at the top, but

they're contained in the cloud. Right. So at the top of the cloud you have all these positively charged particles, at the bottom you have negatively charged particles electrons, and all of a sudden you have what's called an electric field charge separation, which is uh, can do some funky stuff. Well, that's how batteries work because chuck, as you'll remember, nature loves homeostasis. Yeah, if it's these things are separate, they

just want to bring them back together exactly. Electrons love to flow toward the direction of positively charged particles to neutralize it. And that's an electric charge. It's electricity is just an electron flow. Okay, So you have a cloud that's suddenly like a battery, a big honkin battery. Yeah, and um as this as this uh, this charge separation becomes more and more charged like that, there's more and

more positive particles, more and more negative particles. It actually, as these negative particles are the electrons are accumulating at the bottom of the cloud, they the charge can become so great that here on the Earth's surface, dude, it

actually presses the electrons down into the earth. Yeah. And it's hard to imagine this, but it happens when you're walking around out there during a thunderstorm, like it is being pushed below your feet, leaving the ground positively charged and ready to join their little buddies up there in the clouds. So you have this layer of electrons and now you have to basically two electric fields that can either go up within the cloud or it can go

down to the ground. Yeah, that's a common like that was my first question was if these electrons within the cloud are separated, why are they going all the way down to Earth. Why don't they just you know, have lightning inside the cloud. And the answer is, well, that happens all the time. That's the most common form of lightning, uh, is when the electrons form lightning within it's a little fluffy buddy there with It's like cloud to cloud or

intra cloud lightning. Intra cloud is within the same cloud between two clouds, but it's it's still falls in the cloud to cloud category. So I think there's two main division, cloud to cloud and cloud to ground, and then ground to cloud is also ground to cloud still, but it's not because it's going between the ground and cloud or between a cloud and itself for another cloud. Yeah, I like a little cloud on cloud action this one. Okay, So you have this um do you have the Earth

suddenly taking on a positive charge on its surface. You have a strong negative charge at the bottom of the um, at the bottom of the cloud, and you have nature going like what's to do? This is terrible, Like there's an electrical potential here and it's making me nervous. Like something has to change. So something does change. There's this process called the ionization of air, and it's basically turning air into what's called plasma by ripping it apart essentially. Yeah,

like to call it ionic separation. Up coined that term nice. I don't know if it's what anyone else in science calls it, but basically the air around the cloud breaks down, so, uh, the electric field is really strong. It separates the ions. Now they can move a lot more freely and can conduct a lot more electricity. Well, yeah, it takes regular air like the stuff we're breathing now, and it separates the electrons from the positive ions. Yeah, but not they're

still within the same area. They're not like completely separate, right, It's not like it's not like um opening the curtains with two hands, but it is kind of in a certain way. With these free electrons, it makes this little bit of air that that's been ionized much more conductive, like you said, plasma. Okay, so these things this happens in little like fifty yard jolts, and they call those step leaders. Each little each little rip, each little separation

of creation. The plasma creates a channel in the air that it's very conductive, way more conductive than the surrounding air. And it happened a little fifty yard branches. Yeah, and they don't have to go straight down. They're basically looking they're looking to get to the ground with a path of least resistance. So if you see this. Discovery had a show did you see that on YouTube? The what

was it called Raging Planet. Discovery had a show called raging, and for the first time they filmed a lightning strike in the super slow mow. So when you see this like with your naked eye, I mean it all happens in a blip and you see a lightning strike. But when you see it slowed down, you see the lightning working its way down in the little fifty yard bits and fracturing off to the left and to the right and basically like disappearing again because it didn't find its

way all the way to the ground. Oh yeah, yeah, it would just go like so left and then disappear, and then it'll go down, and then it'll go to the right and disappear. These channels that that form. Basically you have a bunch of the step leaders coming down and whichever reaches the ground first winds. But just because one reach the ground doesn't mean the other ones automatically disappear.

So that flow of electrons is going to fill up all of the associated um ion channels UM with this flow of electrons, right, So um, before that happens, though, you've got these step leaders coming down from the clouds, you also have something called um positive leaders, right, it's positive streamers. I'm sorry. You also have positive streamers coming up from the ground. So a positive streamer is a or a step leader is a plasma channel forming in

the direction of the flow of electrons. A positive streamer is a plasma channel forming in the opposite direction of the flow of electrons. So it's kind of stretching up. And it could come from the ground, it could come from your head, it could come from a tree or that golf club you're holding. And they've captured these in photographic form, and it's the same thing. It looks like, you know, a little purplish bolt of lightning coming up from the ground trying to join up with its buddy

that's coming down from the sky. Yeah. And like you said, I it can come from you. The reason your hair lifts up when you're in like an electrical storm, you just become a positive streamer, which is not good. It sounds nice, it does, and you're glowing a little purplish, but you're in big trouble if it connects with you. Yeah, And it's the same concept. If you've ever uh shocked

yourself on a door knob, it's the same thing. The closer you're and once you've built up that energy, the hand gets closer to the metal, and it leaps out from your finger and out from the door knob, and you know you've got lightning. Okay, So I mean we're drawing this out like I'm about to hyperventilate and I'm

so excited. Finally, at one point you have a step leader, and like you said, it's taken the path of least resistance, right, So it's not going to come straight down, largely because the shape of the cloud is not equal or is not totally flat. Particles in the air can get in the way, all kinds of stuff, right, So, um, they're coming down in little branches that branch off suddenly nowhere.

Eventually one comes down and a step leader connects with a positive streamer, and all of a sudden, you have a full uninterrupted path for these electrons to flow, and boy do they flow. What you have is lightning, right. You have a sudden current exchange from the cloud down to the earth and then from the earth back up to the cloud. Because the lightning stroke isn't just from the cloud to the ground. It goes down and then back up immediately and it's on the back up. Yeah,

return stroke, Yes, a return stroke. Thank you. On the way back up. That's when you see the light literally, so lightning is we we don't actually see the electron flow. We see the local effects of the electron flow. And um, this electron flow produces a tremendous amount of heat energy Like what did you say? It was like hotter than the surface of the sun, six times hotter. So that's

that's what you're seeing, right. There is an explosion of heat, right, and then that heat actually explodes the air around it, and that produces thunder. Yeah. Um, the way I understood it was the channel, the ionized plasma channel that's created when it goes away, the air collapsing back in on itself is what creates that sound, that sound wave? Is that right? What I heard was that it's actually exploding outward and it's compressing the air, basically exploding the air

around it. That converts into a shock wave in the form of sound that travels outward. That's how I understood it. Well, maybe it collapses in and explodes out that's very um, that's very democratic of you. And then one more thing about thunder, Chuck, get this, there's three segments to the sound of thunder. Did you know that I thought Pink Floyd said that was like four. Really, I'm just kidding, okay, because I remember delicates onund of thunder, but I don't

remember four parts. Okay. So there's the first part um if I mean think about it. Think about when you've ever heard thunder. It's like a there's like a few sounds to it, right, So the first part is actually um caused by the step leaders. Right, that's a tearing sound. The second, a cracking sound, is actually caused by the positive streamers. And then the third part is the explosion of the air blowing up. But what you're hearing those first two parts is literally the air ripping open and

they crazy yep. And if you are out in the country, you might be able to hear that as far away as fifteen miles. If you're in the city, maybe about five miles, you'll be able to hear that thunder. And it is true that you can divide by five and that is roughly how far away your lightning is from you. That's counting from the point the lightning strikes till you hear the thunder. Divide that amount of seconds by five. Ten seconds, it's two miles away. Is that how does

that rule of thumb work? I mean, don't storms travel faster? Well, no, I think it has nothing to do with how faster traveling. It's um the speed of light versus the speed of sound. Oh yeah, because the speed of light travels at the speed of light travel. The speed of sound is far far slower, which is why the sound of thunder lags the the flash of lightning so much. You just explained it to yourself. Thank you. Thanks, So, I think it's time for lightning myth number one. Whoa, that's a good

sound effect. All right, lightning myth number one? Once again, The tallest objects in a storm don't always get struck by lightning. Uh. It would make sense that lightning, if you know, if it's gonna be reaching something that's sticking up from the ground in the way of a positive streamer, that the tallest thing will always be that thing. And that is not the case because you can never really predict the path of lightning. No, I strike the ground

right next to the tallest thing. It might also, yes, because the the that path of least resistance, whether it's dust or or the curvature of the earth or whatever. That's Yeah, you can't predict where it's gonna go. And even more than that, once the lightning is struck, it may jump. Oh yeah, that is a property of lightning, and may jump to something that has an even even lesser path of resistance. UM, and that could be you.

So it could strike a tree that you're standing by and you could be like whoo and then yeah, uh the way, I guess, way to bust that myth? Thank you. UM. I think since you brought that up, we might as well talk about, um, the fact that when you see lightning and you see it in the clouds and then down on the ground and then flickering in the clouds afterward, and remnants branching off, that's like maybe forty or fifty lightning strikes. You're seeing all at once. It's the whole

idea that lightning doesn't strike the same place twice. Every time it strikes it twice. It strikes it like like you said, um, yeah, it's this that that electron flow, the back and forth between the ground and the earth in this um which neutralizes the electrical charge. It's not just one stroke. It's forty or fifty and that's what you're more likely to see, even unless you just happen to be looking in the field of view with that original blast. That's why it's so tough to capture, like

the Discovery Channel gown Raging Planet. Was he like, sits in the room with this little camera and I would just let the camera run. I don't know why he sat there with his finger on the button. It's like, dude, just press record and walk away. But I guess, well, I think maybe because it's such a high speed camera. Plus also hips thematic doesn't have a video function. But he likened it to fishing. He's it's a little like fishing. Did he say it like that like a jerk. Yeah,

he was a little bored. Uh, but he got it. You know, it was all worth it in in the end. That's what counts, Okay, Josh, I think it's time to talk about various types of lightning. Yeah, so we talked about UM ground two or cloud to ground under an umbrella under which ground to cloud falls UM and this another way to put it is that's triggered or artificial and natural. Natural is when it comes down from the

cloud to the ground. UM triggered or artificial is when some sort of man made structure, say a skyscraper initiates this lightning, so it's sending up a positive streamer like hey man, come on, let's do this, and the clouds like okay, and then it comes down rather than the cloud pressing down the electrons I think, on the earth surface and then just hitting a cow, because what's more natural than lightning striking a cow? That's right. Instant primary

um types of lightning. Normal lightning, which pretty much is what we've been talking about. Sheet lightning is reflected in the clouds, and I guess that would paul under intra and inter cloud lightning. I would think so. Heat lightning is my favorite because that reminds me of growing up, going to Florida and swimming at my cousin's house. And heat lining is basically lightning this so far away you

can't hear the thunder right, and it's hot enough. The reason they call it heat lightning um is because it's hot enough that it's being reflected a tremendous distance by this higher temperature atmosphere. It's a comforting lightning, though it is in during the summer months. Um Ball lightning, which we have talked about before, we were entirely certain back then that it actually existed. But I think since we've mentioned it that really is it super proven that we've

figured out that it can exist but no one understands it. Yeah, that's the phenomenon where like you will see a ball of lightning going through your house. Correct, Yes, I remember it was like one of the some listener wrote wrote in about it. Yeah, was it like the um spontaneous combustion. I don't know that I've ever seen it captured though on film Ernie thing. Has it been? Yes, it's been recreated, that's I don't think it's been. Someone hasn't caught the

natural version of it. But yeah, so we've proven it can exist. Um. But yeah, it'll burn you and then it'll blow up. It's really dangerous, scary, crazy lightning that no one gets. Josh, is it time for lightning? Myth number two? It sounds like it number two. And this is something I learned today. A search protector will not save your computer and your television from a lightning strike. I thought that's what they were for. Apparently they're only for They can only um save your computer or TV

if it's something that the power company has searched. It's a searge from your electrical supply. So what you need is something called a what's it called a lightning arrested And I've seen that, um, and they're relatively inexpensive, and it's filled up with a gas that well, I mean it was like thirty bucks. Oh yeah, that's not bad. Yeah. I thought you're gonna be like compared to a new Volvo. Well that's what I thought. A lightning arrestaurant sounded and

it was filled with gas that diffuses the charge. I thought it'd be like ten bucks. But now even with gas prices today, that's right. Um. So we talked about types of lightning. We should probably talk about lightning rods at some point, like maybe now, So do you know Ben Franklin actually invented these things? And I went and double checked, like I was like, this sounds like four year old textbook stuff. Yeah, but it's true, wouldn't it. And I also remembered, oh, wait, like his kite experiment

he ripped off a couple of frenchmen. I went and checked that out, and no, actually he Franklin had conducted some sort of experiments and possibly proposed a kite experiment and these frenchmen. He published his results in the early seventeen fifties and a couple of frenchmen, um like, carried him out. So the Frenchman actually did did do this, um But Ben Franklin did develop lightning rods as early as like the seventeen forties, I believe. But he did

have a kite key experiment, right he did. Okay, I don't know if he it's not certain that he actually carried out the gutch the key on the kite experiment or just said, you know, this theoretically could work. It's a thought experiment. Don't be so stupid to go do this. Well, let's call that lightning my number three okay, and here's some retroactive lightning for that one in thunder. WHOA all right?

But he did develop the lightning rod. And basically a lightning rod is a metal rod on the roof of the building that is attached to a metal wire that runs into the ground and it's it's job is to either divert that direct lightning strike into the ground and diffuse it quickly, or if it's jumping around, to collect that and diffuse it so it doesn't cause like super lots of damage to the cry for building. Right, but

it doesn't attract lightning. It says, hey, lightning, I got a positive streamer and I'm not gonna resist you at all. Just take me and um, the lightning will be like, hey, you look pretty good, and um, there you go. But it doesn't attract lightning. And I know the article says that's nitpicking, but it's really not. There's not a different thing offering a good path of least resistance lightning and

attracting it. Yeah, because the whoever wrote this article, who was this, Yeah, I don't, I'd never I didn't recognize the name. I think it's an old article basically said the lightning is gonna be happening anyway, so it's not like it's going to cause lightning to strike there. So that made that made a lot of sense. They also made a pretty good point that, um, because lightning rods conduct electricity so well, that makes them they're not going to be singed or burned or whatever it's when you

resist that, lightning burns you. Right. So like if lightning strikes the like the wood of a house, Um, then the woods not a very good conductor, which means it's going to be a high amount of burning heat damage because of resistance produces this heat energy. That makes sense. Yeah, Um, what else do we have? Do we have another lightning myth? Man, they're just coming hard and fast these days. We saved

them all, right, Lightning myth number four, the Faraday cage. Right, So, um, you are in a car and it's a lightning storm. You've actually saw shelter in a car. Good move. And most people think that's because the tires on the car are touching the ground and they're rubber and they're a good insulator. Not true. In a lightning storm, rubber actually becomes pretty conductive when especially when it's struck by lightning.

But if your car struck by lightning, you should be fairly protected because of this thing called the Faraday cage, named after Michael Faraday, the early electrical genius, but I think the eighteenth century. Yeah, I think he's the one that first described what an electrical field is period. Yeah, he was just a very smart guy. The fact that he didn't die of electrocution is really something that means he's super smart. But he realized that if you if you put something in a metal cage and apply an

electrical charge current to the cage. What's inside the cage will be fine because electricity passes that along the outside of the metal cage, the Faraday cage. Well engineers incorporate that into automobile design. So it's a pretty good place to seek shelter. You don't want to be laying naked on the hood of your car, no, but being inside your car would be would be a pretty good place to be. Uh. Yeah, Just it has nothing to do

with your tires stuff. Don't be a dummy. And I guess that's our first tip if we're going to give some lightning tips. If you are out out and about and if you're driving around Kansas. I don't know why, I God forbid you would be doing anything like that, But stay in your car or get in your car. Yeah, if you don't have a car. Don't go under a tree. Don't go climb the flagpole. Right. Uh. They say to

put your feet close together and crouch down to the ground. Yes, but keep your head as low to the ground as you can get it without touching the ground. Do not don't let anything but the bottom of your shoes touch the ground because when lightning strikes, it sends an electrical current across the ground as well. Right, So if your head happens to be touching all of a sudden, you just had a struck or some sort of neurological damage because you just got struck by lightning. Drest at the

very least. Yeah. Um. But and also if you are crouched down, you're providing less of a chance to create a positive streamer with your body. So you want to find shelter. And if you can't find shelter, you want to crouch down, keep your head low and but not touching the ground. And also there's a study in Japan, Chuck that found that, Um, once you hear thunder, there is no safe interval where you're not vulnerable to a direct lightning strike. By the time you hear thunder, it's

already there. It's already too late. You could be struck by lightning in any second. So there's no warning sound. Then, no, And you also want to get out of pools because they are really good at conducting electricity. Yeah, don't stand around in water. No, it's not a good idea. Um, stay off the telephone. If you still have a telephone that's plugged into a cord on a wall. If you buy things that have the s C N on TV label.

Stay off the phone means you're also in Kansas too, interestingly, Um, and they say, you know, stay out of the bathtub a because it's got water. But one of the other reasons if you're in an older house, um, you're plumbing pipes are gonna be uh pretty good conductors and attractors of that electricity. But the newer house probably PBC right exactly, So if you didn't skimp when you redid your house,

you might have paid for copper. Yeah, it's true. You you really want to remember or we should just be like, let's just not take a bath for a shower while there's a lightning storm. Um. And then I guess is that it for the lightning myths too? Um? I think so I have uh no more little factoids on my sheet either, I've got one. All right, let's hear it. Carol Apathy caro onopathy. It's the study of lightnings effects on the human body, the study of the pathology of

light I was mentioned in there. Okay, isn't that cool though, like talk about a specialized field like not not the effects of electricity on the human body and the effects of lightning striking the human body. Did they study people like Sullivan? I imagine he was he saw a karenopathist or two. I bet you, like he had to have become more susceptible, right, Like, is that possible? I don't know. I think could be a lightning myth that we might

not dispel at this time. I mean, I would think of the guy got I mean, granted, he's a park ranger, so he's out there at least that you mentioned his stetson having a burn. So despite the fact that like lightning, UM is six times hotter than the sun, produces heat six times hotter than the sun, heats the air to like eighteen thou degrees, causing it to explode, it can still hit a human and the only burn wounds typically are at the point of entry in the point of exit.

How does it not kill people all the time? I don't know that one thing that they say is possible UM. The one possible explanation is that it happens so fast that it doesn't have the same amount of time that a UM like an industrial electrocution has. Interesting and remember the hysterical strength thing. Do you want to tell him why people are thrown with electricity. Uh what was it?

Oh yeah, that's right. It's it's not the actual blast, it's the surge of adrenaline is so great that you have this superhuman strength and sort of leap back from it, and your muscles can track so hard and so fast that you throw yourself. Yeah, that's crazy. With lightning, I don't think that's true. I think the shock wave can actually throw you. You know my grandfather, Uh that eventually led to his death. He was electrician. Oh yeah, I

think I might have told the story. He was at the top of a thing and used to test electricity with the back of your hand so it doesn't latch on, and it popped him out. He hit a live war and it knocked him out of a telephone pole and he laid on his head. Oh man, and it was like bedridden for the rest of his life. And oh man, yeah, are you serious? I did not know that. Yeah, wow,

that was Granddaddy Bryant. I was a little kid. I mean he died when I was like six, So all I ever knew of him was he was kind of this big scary guy in hospital bed who gave you candy. Candy and like Buffalo Nichols. Well, okay, that was a bummer way to end this one. Yeah. Um, let's see you got any other terrible stories now, okay, well, then let's go to listener mail. Oh wait, at first I didn't even say how stuff works? What is wrong with me?

Do you want to see some very pretty lightning pictures? Um, and read more about lightning? You can just type that in. This is like a seminal article for how stuff works. It's like bread and butter stuff lightning search bar how stuff works dot com. Now it's time for listener mail, josh Im. We call this uh email I just received, you know, ten minutes ago. Oh okay, hot off the presses. Guys and Jerry have been wanting to write for ages,

and now I actually have things to say. I've been listening to the podcast for years, and I probably listen to them and never listened to the few in the beginning before you two teamed up. Now that's pretty nice. Um, I learned so much from them. Your podcast is the reason I survived mowing lawns for a summer without my brain becoming much from the endless walking back and forth. What I really want to write and say, though, is, thanks for helping me get into my college. My main

essay for applying to colleges was about your podcast. I entitled it Healthcare to zoot Suits, and I talked all about the things I've learned from your podcast, hoping it would show the college is um that I was curious, well rounded, and had a thirst for knowledge. Apparently worked, because I was accepted to several colleges. I will be a freshman at st Olaf College next year next fall. I don't know if they had a team, saying Olaf,

they're like the fighting roses from Golden Girls. Really, that's where rose from Golden Girls from st Olaf? Really? Yeah, I didn't watch Golden Girls. What had I don't know it didn't It's not too late so on lifetime every days. Far than all right? So Aaron M. From Green Bay, Wisconsin. Uh, congratulations for getting into st Olaf College. Jesus, thanks for the inspiration and good luck in college is gonna be great.

It only gets better from from there. In my opinion, life A agree, but then it starts to go down. But that'll be a while. But I thought that was like fifty when that happened. Uh yeah, well we'll see. Okay, so congratulations Aaron. Um, if you are someone who has used us to further your own agenda, say like getting into college or getting a date or whatever, we want to hear that kind of story. UM. You can tweet

to us at s Y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know, and you can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you