-5

A lot seems to be unknown about lightning and it is possibly a source of dark energy at the instance of the strike. So if we were to place say a 10kg lightning rod (earthed) on a set of insulated weighing scales on the top of a tower often struck by lightning, would the scales register a change of weight either way when the lightning struck the rod?

Could the weight increase in the first instance and decrease on the burn out of the strike, or vice versa? Is it possible that in the fraction of time after the strike that a vortex tube is left that has no gravitation?

AccidentalFourierTransform
  • 53,248
  • 20
  • 131
  • 253
ytivarG
  • 11
  • It is probably impossible to measure a change in mass that quickly. – LDC3 Apr 05 '15 at 03:08
  • 5
    Note that a change of what the scales display would not indicate that "lightning has mass", only that a force acted upon the rod. – ACuriousMind Apr 05 '15 at 14:52
  • 6
    What do you mean "source of dark energy"? Do you mean dark energy as in the cosmological thing? –  Feb 26 '16 at 23:33
  • 1
    I am very curius where you heard that lightning is possibly a source of dark energy. Like very, very curious – Señor O Sep 20 '21 at 23:56

4 Answers4

0

Many say that there are 4 types of matter. Solid, liquid, gas, and plasma. Lightning is considered a plasma. So (to my knowledge) it does have weight to it.

Chad Jones
  • 1
  • but the plasma is formed from the air that is already present. On the other hand, a few coulombs of electrons which were isolated from their atoms move along the path, so there is a mass transfer along the path of the strike. It's a few millimoles, so a few nanograms worth of electrons. In fact, 1 nanogram would be a charge of 176 coulombs, which is about 5 times larger than an average strike. – Bill N Jul 10 '17 at 02:14
0

Lightning is just electrons moving. Your statement about lightning being mysterious is completely false. Lightning does not create dark energy.

Joshua Noriega Aguilar
  • 111
0

Each electron has a mass of about $9.11 \times 10^{−31}$ kilograms, but it would not be feasible to exactly count how many electrons there are in a single lightning bolt, hence, not feasible to get an exact mass.

M. Enns
  • 8,747
Avinash Kumar
  • 1
-3

According to M = E/C², the mass of the lightning is equal to lightning bolt's energy divided by the speed of light, so yes, it does have a small amount of weight to it.

Joshua Noriega Aguilar
  • 111