For centuries, mankind has tried logicallyexplain various electrical phenomena, examples of which they observed in nature. Thus, in ancient times, lightning was considered a sure sign of the wrath of the gods, medieval navigators blissfully trembled in front of the fires of St. Elmo, and our contemporaries are extremely afraid of meeting with ball lightning.
All these are electrical phenomena.In nature, everything, even you and I, carries an electrical charge. If objects with large charges of different polarities approach each other, then a physical interaction appears, the visible result of which becomes the stained, usually yellow or violet, flow of cold plasma between them. Its current ceases as soon as the charges in both bodies are balanced.
The most common electrical phenomena innature - lightning. Every second several hundred hit them on the surface of the Earth. Lightnings choose their goal, usually detached high objects, because, according to physical laws, to transfer a strong charge requires the shortest distance between a thundercloud and the Earth's surface. To protect buildings from lightning, their owners install roof lightning rods on the roofs, which are high metal structures with grounding, which, when lightning strikes, allows the entire discharge to be discharged into the soil.
Lights of St. Elmo is another electrica phenomenon whose nature has for a very long time remained unclear. We dealt with him mostly sailors. The fires showed themselves as follows: when a ship hit a thunderstorm, the tops of its masts began to blaze with a bright flame. The explanation for the phenomenon turned out to be very simple - the fundamental role was played by the high voltage of the electromagnetic field, which is always observed before the onset of a thunderstorm. But not only sailors can deal with lights. Pilots of large airliners also encountered this phenomenon when they flew through clouds of ash thrown into the sky by volcanic eruptions. Fires arise from the friction of particles of ash on the skin.
Both the lightning and the lights of Saint Elmo areelectric phenomena, which were seen by many, but not everyone was able to collide with ball lightning. Their nature has not been studied until the end. Usually eyewitnesses describe ball lightning as a bright luminous formation of a spherical shape, randomly moving in space. Three years ago a theory was put forward that questioned the reality of their existence. If previously it was thought that a variety of fireballs are electrical phenomena, then the theory suggested that they are nothing more than hallucinations.
There is another phenomenon that has an electromagneticnature - the northern lights. It occurs due to the influence of the solar wind on the upper atmosphere. Northern lights look like flashes of various colors and are recorded, as a rule, in rather high latitudes. There are, of course, exceptions - if the solar activity is high enough, then the inhabitants of temperate latitudes can see the glow in the sky.
Electrical phenomena are a rather interesting object of study for physicists all over the planet, since most of them require detailed substantiation and serious study.
