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Is there any discussion anywhere in Wikipedia about a potential relationship between Ball Lightning and Magnetic Monopoles? 50.206.176.154 (talk) 02:46, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
Feel free to discuss this issue at WP:Reference desk/Science. Sundayclose (talk) 14:54, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
I (50.206.176.154) am interested in this topic because of an experience related to me by my grandfather. When I was 17 (about 55 years ago) at a family reunion at the dairy farm owned by my grandfather, we were walking together toward the barn before the afternoon milking, and he stopped at a spot on the walkway and told me that it was the exact spot where he was standing when he was my age when lightning struck a lightning rod on the roof of the barn (about 20 yards from where he was standing). Immediate after the lightening strike, a ball lightning formed and moved from the iron lightning rod to the roof of the barn. From there it slowly moved down the roof to the gutter. It followed the gutter (about two feet) to the downspout then went inside the downspout and slowly moved down inside the downspout (although he said he could tell where the ball lightning was as it went down the downspout). When it reached the bottom it went into a rain barrel that was full of rain water. The ball lightning boiled off all the water in the barrel and then was gone. This story impressed me considerably. I was very good in math, so it surprised my father that I would choose physics for my BS instead of math. I have always thought that there was some relationship between the magnetic monopole and the wrought iron lightning rod and the ball lightening my grandfather saw. I think that it would improve either article (magnetic monopoles or ball lightning) to start a discussion about the potential relationship between them. 50.206.176.154 (talk) 20:14, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
My parents watched in their home the development of what appeared to be an impressive thundercloud. There was no rain yet. My father watched in the direction of the could at the back of the house, my mother watched through a windows in the front of the house in the opposite direction. My mother then saw a ball of orange roll through the street, an estimated one meter in diameter. She described its texture and colour like the sun's granulated surface, as "shown" in fake-colour images. As my mother stood perplexed and the ball rolled out of view my father ducked for cover. He saw an "enormous" orange sphere envelope a forested cemetery, at about one kilometer distance. It took several seconds for the sound of the strike to reach their home.
It is unclear what happened first: the lightning strike at the cemetery or the ball in the street. The distance between the lightning ball and the site of the strike is about one kilometer.
No damage in the street was recorded due to the ball lightning. But the cemetery was devastated by the strike. An oak of about 20 meters was reduced to shreds of wood. The mourning center's back wall, double brick masonry 10 meters long and 3 meters tall, was obliterated and rubble was blown inward. Marble tomb stones got shattered. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxAVeI7aF-4 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.83.108.100 (talk) 10:33, 15 August 2022
(UTC)
Hi, just a note. I've spoken to someone about this, and it seems a certain very famous writer and artist here actually saw one in the 1800s though didn't describe it as ball shaped. I'm trying to locate the original article but as its going into a scientific paper have to be careful. It does suggest that the ion beam explanation by Lowke may in fact be essentially correct at least in some cases. BL may turn out to be several rather than one phenomenon, for which a "Unified Theory" may be needed that covers all observations and effects including the more outlandish ones. I have done some research here and actually investigated a case that suggested CRT TVs can attract these possibly due to the electrostatic field in the tube itself and around the scan coils. Certainly ion beams extending out into the air can result from HV runaway, and this is actually well documented with military equipment, effects at Fermilab, LEP and LHC as well as anecdotal cases in Russia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.190.166.126 (talk) 07:03, 8 June 2022 (UTC)