electricity - What makes the speed of lightning different to the …
Dec 4, 2021 · This slows the propagation of electricity in a wire. In copper, electricity travels at about $1/3$ the speed of light. Lightning advances much slower than that. If a bolt of lightning advances into newly ionized channel of air, charges build up at the end of the channel. Before the lightning can advance further, more air must be ionized.
How fast does lightning travel? - Answers
May 20, 2024 · Depending on air conditions, the typical lightning bolt moves at 224,000 mph -- or about 3,700 miles per second.However, the light you see from the lightning obviously travels at the speed of ...
Without seeing the lightning, can you tell how far away it struck by ...
Mar 21, 2014 · The sound speed in air is a relatively constant $343\tfrac{m}{s}=0.21\tfrac{mi}{s}$. Even if the dispersion were relatively high, you would need to know something about the way the thunder sounded when it started.
visible light - Why and how fast does lightning propagate?
Feb 7, 2019 · How "quickly" does lightning propagate, and what are the main contributing factors to the propagation speed (e.g density of clouds etc)? What exactly is propagating? It can't be light, since it's much too fast, so somehow the "sequence of discharges" that is lightning propagates.
Is lightning faster than light or is it light? - Answers
Jun 18, 2024 · Lightning travels at the speed of light, which is approximately 299,792 kilometers per second, while thunder travels at the speed of sound, approximately 343 meters per second.
Why does lightning cause sound? - Physics Stack Exchange
Jan 27, 2022 · The sound barrier theory is complete nuts. However, lightning does not travel at the speed of light. In fact, when the voltage between the cloud and the Earth reaches a critical level, many small low-intensity lightning bolts propagate more or less randomly downwards, ionizing the air along the way, forming a channel of conductive ionized air.
How is the speed of electricity determined? - Physics Stack Exchange
Apr 27, 2017 · The speed of a visibly-leaping spark is the speed of tip-growth of a plasma streamer. When a plasma-streamer extends itself, the plasma isn't moving along. Instead the nitrogen and oxygen in the air ahead of the spark is being converted into plasma, which adds to the tip of the growing leader. Lightning is a progressive converting of air into ...
What is faster the speed of lightning or the speed of sound?
Aug 11, 2023 · Which travels faster lightning or thunder? Lightning travels faster than thunder. Lightning is a visible discharge of electricity that moves at the speed of light, which is about 186,000 miles per ...
Speed of light vs speed of electricity - Physics Stack Exchange
Sep 24, 2017 · So it is normally lower, but not too much lower than the speed of light in the vacuum. The speed also depends on the cable construction. The cable geometry and the insulation both reduce the speed. Good cables achieve 80% of the speed of light; excellent cables achieve 90%. The speed does not directly depend on the voltage or resistance.
Meaning and logic of Einstein's train thought experiment
Apr 16, 2016 · you can measure the speed of light or the speed of sound from each device (ie you can measure the left-going and the right-going light/sound seperately). Sound. So then you run the train past and the clickers go off, and the above three measurements are done (well: two of them in the embankment frame), and you find the following things: