{"id":12452,"date":"2008-04-29T14:49:51","date_gmt":"2008-04-29T21:49:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2008\/04\/29\/whats-more-cool-than-summoning-a-lightning-bolt.html"},"modified":"2008-04-29T14:49:51","modified_gmt":"2008-04-29T21:49:51","slug":"whats_more_cool_than_summ","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/04\/29\/whats_more_cool_than_summ.html","title":{"rendered":"What&#8217;s more cool than summoning a lightning bolt?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.economist.com\/science\/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11088576\" target=\"_blank\">Summoning a lightning bolt with a <em>freaking laser!<\/em><\/a>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>The researchers used their laser pulses to rip away negatively charged electrons attached to molecules in the air around thunderstorms. These freed electrons behaved like conducting wires. The team reports in <em>Optics Express <\/em>that while full bolts of cloud-to-ground lightning were not formed, the lasers did create increased electrical activity in which charged particles followed the laser-generated path for a short distance. The result looked like corona discharges, known to mariners as St Elmo&#8217;s fire\u2014ominous flickering lights sometimes seen above the masts of a ship about to be hit by lightning.<\/p>\n<p>Dr Kasparian thinks that more powerful lasers will be able to draw lightning to the ground.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I think that&#8217;s how <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Apple_(TOS_episode)\" target=\"_blank\">Vaal<\/a> did it &#8230;<\/p>\n<p><small><\/p>\n<p>(via <a href=\"http:\/\/www.geekpress.com\/2008\/04\/summoning-lightning-bolts-with-laser.html\" target=\"_blank\">GeekPress<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p><\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Summoning a lightning bolt with a freaking laser!&nbsp; The researchers used their laser pulses to rip away negatively charged electrons attached to molecules in the air around thunderstorms. These freed&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":29851,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/08\/16\/lightning-strikes.html","url_meta":{"origin":12452,"position":0},"title":"Lightning strikes","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 16-Aug-12 7:56am","format":false,"excerpt":"What concrete hit by a lightning bolt looks like. \u00a0Awesome.Reshared post from +Dan Eastwood Embedded Link Pattern resulting from a lightning strike to a sidewalk Pattern resulting from a lightning strike to a sidewalk Google+: View post on Google+","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11351,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/09\/14\/the_world_catches_up_to_s.html","url_meta":{"origin":12452,"position":1},"title":"The world catches up to Star Trek","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 14-Sep-07 7:21am","format":false,"excerpt":"Any article about \"di-positronium\" and \"anti-matter\" and \"gamma-ray annihilation lasers\" has got to be worth reading! Fragile particles rarely seen in our Universe have been merged with ordinary electrons to...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Science &amp; Nature&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Science &amp; Nature","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/science"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":17617,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/06\/15\/unblogged-bits-tue-15-jun-10-1400.html","url_meta":{"origin":12452,"position":2},"title":"Unblogged Bits (Tue. 15-Jun-10 1400)","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 15-Jun-10 12:00pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries .... Act of God Kills Touchdown Jesus - I think Jesus is probably glad that particular statue of him is gone, whether or not He had anything to do with that lightning bolt. HOWTO remove\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Potpourri&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Potpourri","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/potpourri"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":133518,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/05\/20\/the-black-lightning-trailer.html","url_meta":{"origin":12452,"position":3},"title":"The &quot;Black Lightning&quot; trailer","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 20-May-17 12:30pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I like it. The happily retired hero pulled back into action. The guy who's a father first and a reluctant hero second. I'm sure it will be full of Berlantiverse melodramatic hijinx, and I'm sorry to hear that (for the moment) it won't be part of the general Berlantiverse continuity,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5960,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/06\/23\/thats_not_dayli.html","url_meta":{"origin":12452,"position":4},"title":"That&#8217;s not daylight &#8230;","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 23-Jun-04 9:17am","format":false,"excerpt":"Man takes photos of lightning storm. Storm decides to reciprocate with lightning strike in his back yard. Man gets photo without realizing it. (via BoingBoing)...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Climate Change \/ Weather \/ Disasters&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Climate Change \/ Weather \/ Disasters","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/science\/weather-and-climate-change"},"img":{"alt_text":"lightning_tree_062104.jpg","src":"\/blog\/images\/lightning_tree_062104.jpg","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":131464,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/09\/black-lightning-to-come-to-tv.html","url_meta":{"origin":12452,"position":5},"title":"Black Lightning to come to TV","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 9-Sep-16 3:51am","format":false,"excerpt":"Tony Isabella's 1977 creation, Black Lightning (one of the first significant African-American superheroes at DC) has never quite gotten the prominence I wish he had. Perhaps it's, in retrospect, because he ended up being sort of a social justice warrior (in a very preachy era), or because he was an\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12452\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}