Lightning needle. Fun physical experience at home

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Lightning needle. Physical experiments

Entertaining experiments in physics

Entertaining experiences at home / Physics experiments for children

There is still an incorrect name for a device that protects tall buildings and structures from destructive lightning strikes during a thunderstorm - a lightning rod. But it is not thunder that is dangerous, but lightning itself. Thunder only frightens people with its mighty peals. In fact, this is just a crackle from a giant spark that has slipped between the clouds - lightning. And long peals of thunder occur due to the resulting echo - the repeated reflection of sound. Sometimes the word "lightning rod" is sometimes used, which is more consistent with the purpose of this device. But the most correct name is a lightning rod, because it is protection against lightning.

Thunderclouds are charged with electricity. When a spark jumps between them high in the sky, there is no danger for earthly structures and for people. But when lightning from a cloud strikes high objects on the ground, it can both start a fire and kill an animal or a person.

A lightning rod is a metal rod pointed at one end. The rod is fixed at the highest point of the building. Its tip is directed upwards, and a thick wire is attached to its other end. The opposite end of the wire is connected to a metal sheet buried in the ground. That's the whole device for protecting buildings from lightning strikes.

Now, if a giant spark - lightning strikes the tip of the lightning rod, all of its electric charge will go into the ground without causing harm.

You and I can hear a kind of thunder from the discharge of miniature lightning. As a lightning rod, we will have a needle clamped in our fingers, instead of a thundercloud - an electrified comb. The lightning will be so small and the thunder so quiet that we simply won't hear it. We'll have to turn on the transistor radio. It will enhance the crackle of sparks that will jump from the comb to the tip of the needle. The nature of this "thunder" is different: electrical discharges amplified in the receiver. In the summer, when you listen to the receiver, even with a cloudless sky, rustling and crackling in the receiver's loudspeaker, the so-called lightning noise, sometimes disturbs you. These are electric discharges of thunderstorms for many tens and hundreds of kilometers from you.

And now we will create such discharges artificially next to the radio receiver and also hear them.

Turn on the receiver and turn the tuning knob so that no station can be heard. Set the volume knob to a division more than half the scale. Electrify the comb with dry fur or wool. Hold the comb over the receiver (close to it). Bring the needle to the comb. Even if you do not touch the comb with a needle, a small spark will jump through the air gap - and you will hear a distinct click in the receiver. Electrify the comb several times - and each time a small crackle will be heard. And if you pass all the teeth of an electrically charged comb over the tip of the needle, you will hear a series of clicks - as many as the teeth have passed.

Needle-lightning rod

If you have a receiver in an ebonite case, like a receiver, you can do without a comb. Rub the cloth on the handle of the receiver or its body. In this case, strong rustling will be heard from the loudspeaker. When you bring the needle to the body of the receiver, you will hear the crackle of a miniature lightning. Move the needle over the case without touching it, and you will hear a continuous crackle of discharges.

Author: Rabiza F.V.

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