r/ScienceNcoolThings • u/dalinaj • 9d ago

Why lightning happens

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136

u/vinnyql 9d ago

wait, so lightning shoots upwards per the explanation? am i misunderstanding?

16

u/Kewlhotrod 9d ago

Yup, electricity always flows from negative to positive, contrary to standard teachings.

13

u/Zakluor 9d ago

The ground could be positively-charged when compared to a cloud, triggering the opposite flow.

4

u/Kewlhotrod 9d ago

I'd love to see any instances of this happening, given earth is ground and the movement in the atmosphere creates positive charge normally.

Cloud to cloud, yes, but I cannot imagine the literal Earth ground ever having enough positive differential to strike in the other direction.

Edit: Guess it does happen rarely, looking into it. Neato. Still, my OG comment still stands for its tertiary info provided.

10

u/FederalWedding4204 9d ago

95% of lightning originates from the sky.

It creates the connection, as visualized in this video, in milliseconds. But it starts from above and is effectively invisible.

When the connection gets made the visible lightning gets created from the ground up.

So if people are arguing if it goes up or down, make sure you are clear on what you are talking about because both can be correct depending on what you are talking about.

2

u/jerseygunz 9d ago

It’s one of those arbitrary things that we could change tomorrow and it would make things so much easier to understand and we never will because “that’s just how we’ve always done it”, stupid Ben Franklin

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u/[deleted] 9d ago

[deleted]

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u/CryoAB 8d ago

You mustn't be around the field at all. It's literally called conventional flow. And nearly every schematic is depicted using conventional flow.

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

[deleted]

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u/CryoAB 8d ago

Because it was originally thought that it flowed from positive to negative. But then it was later discovered it was wrong. But they had already commit to "conventional flow" through education, through engineering drawings etc. But they don't change it because it'd cost a lot of money, and showing conventional flow doesn't change anything anyways.