Lightning weather

Lightning and thunder are produced at the same time. Why do we see lightning first and then hear thunder? Many people may know the answer to this question, but you may not understand the underlying reasons. Next, we will learn more about this process and see if it is consistent with what you think.

1. Why do lightning and thunder appear at the same time? Our most common discharge is in the cloud, which generally occurs in the troposphere, that is, about 1 1 km from the surface. The hot spot in the troposphere is that the higher the altitude, the lower the temperature.

The cause of lightning has not been fully proved, and the most widely accepted statement at present is as follows:

Cumulonimbus clouds are hotbeds of lightning, and the height of cumulonimbus clouds can generally reach 1000 meters or more. We know that the temperature in the upper troposphere is very low. In fact, ice crystals will form over 5 kilometers. When raindrops in cumulonimbus clouds freeze, positive ions will be concentrated in the colder parts of raindrops, and negative ions will be concentrated in the warmer parts of raindrops, which has been confirmed by experiments.

So the raindrops are cold and positively charged outside, while the raindrops are warm and negatively charged inside.

As the raindrops further freeze into ice crystals, they will eventually break. At this time, the positively charged shell outside the raindrops will break into pieces and move upward with the airflow, while the heavier raindrops will gather at the bottom of the cloud with negative charges.

When the charge difference in the cloud accumulates to millions or even hundreds of millions of volts, discharge will occur between clouds, within clouds and between the bottom of clouds. It's like a capacitor being broken down because the voltage is too high.

Lightning occurs at the moment of breakdown. The air around lightning is heated to about 33,000 degrees Celsius in less than 65,438+0 seconds. Because of the rapid heating, the air explodes and expands, and then produces sound waves, which is thunder.

It can be seen that lightning is generated at the same time.

Second, why do you see lightning first and then hear thunder? The essence of lightning is sound and light, and the propagation speed of light (lightning) is much faster than that of sound (lightning). Specifically, the speed of light is about 300,000 kilometers per second, while the speed of sound is about 343 meters per second, which means that light is faster than sound 1 10,000 times. What is this concept?

If light and sound run around the earth at the same time, it only takes about 0. 134 seconds for light and about 32 hours for sound.

Through this feature, we can simply estimate how far lightning is from us.

If lightning is 0/000 meters away from people/kloc, it takes about 3 seconds for people to hear thunder after seeing lightning. I was silent for a few seconds as soon as I saw lightning, and then the corresponding distance of one second was about 333 meters. After calculating the results, students who are afraid of thunder may feel at ease.

Light travels faster than sound1100,000 times. If this reason is regarded as a problem, is there a deeper principle behind it? Of course there is!

3. Why is light faster than sound? Light waves are electromagnetic waves, while sound is mechanical waves. The difference between these two waves determines their different propagation speeds.

First of all, electromagnetic wave, as an electromagnetic wave with a wavelength between 380 and 800 nanometers, is itself a high-frequency electromagnetic field radiated by atoms and molecules. This process belongs to nuclear reaction, with extremely high energy and can spread without medium.

As a mechanical wave, sound is essentially produced by the vibration of objects, similar to dominoes, so it must be transmitted through the medium. Once there is no media, such as people entering space, they can't hear the sound.

Light waves propagate through electromagnetic fields, and the generation of light waves requires extremely high energy. In contrast, the vibration energy of an object is much lower, and it is also inseparable from the medium. The above differences make light faster than sound.

Back to the question: Why do you see lightning first and then hear thunder? Is there a deeper understanding?

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