- Have you ever sat around watching a thunderstorm as it rolls by?

How does it make you feel?

Some people love thunderstorms and find them really relaxing, other people make them a little nervous.

I was definitely one of those people.

I used to be scared of lightning until I learned more about the science behind it.

Hi, I'm Casey from the Mid-America Science Museum in Hot Springs and today, I'm gonna use some electricity to teach you the science behind thunder and lightning.

So here I have one of our tools at the museum called a plasma ball.

See that purple stuff inside, it looks like a lightning bolt doesn't it?

That's because it is.

See plasma is the fourth state of matter.

It's what you find in lightning bolts, in nebulas and gas clouds and even in some stars and it's almost pure energy.

So think of it like, electricity flowing through the air and if I touch it, whoa!

It moves with my hand but it doesn't hurt.

I'm not getting shocked or sparked or anyway and that's 'cause it's inside a glass ball.

Glass is an insulator, that means it's a material that slows energy down.

It doesn't move through it quite as quickly, but why is it attracted to my hand?

Well, that's because I'm on the ground.

All electricity wants to go to the ground.

That's why lightning bolts strike from the clouds to the ground and humans are conductors.

Conductors mean that electricity flows through us really well.

So that electricity is traveling over across my body and down into the ground.

I'm completing the circuit, but like I said, because it's inside an insulator, it's nice and slow and I'm not getting hurt at all.

Did you know electricity can travel through the air wirelessly?

Check this out.

We just need the lights off and a fluorescent light bulb.

Whoa!

The electricity traveling from the plasma ball is actually going through the air and causing the gas inside the florescent light bulb to glow.

Whoa!

Now that's some bright science, but to learn about thunder and lightning, we're gonna need something bigger, much much bigger.

Come over here and see what I'm talking about.

This is our Tesla coil.

It gives off one and a half million volts of electricity.

It's the world's most powerful conical Tesla coil according to the Guinness book of world records.

Are you ready to see what it can do?

Here we go in three, two, one.

(lighting buzzing) Wow!

That was really exciting and very loud.

So how can I do this in here and still be safe?

I mean, that's a lot.

It's not as powerful as real lightning but still one and a half million volts is pretty crazy.

How are we able to handle this much electricity in a closed room?

Well notice the red thing around it?

It's called the Faraday cage, made out of two and a half tons of steel.

Remember how I said electricity and lightning always wants to get into the ground?

Well, it's looking for the easiest way to get there and metal is the best.

It's the most attractive to electricity and that two and a half times is a beacon for shoot me.

So the lightening or the electrical discharge hits that metal cage and takes it all the way down into the ground and we are perfectly safe outside.

Notice that really loud noise it's making?

That's just like thunder.

Thunder is only the sound of all the electricity.

Yeah, electricity can make sound.

See, electricity gets really really hot.

A lightning bolt can be as hot as the surface of the sun and all that heat causes the gas in the air to expand but it's expanding too quickly.

Imagine I had a balloon and I was blowing it up, what would happen if I blew that balloon up too big and too fast?

Right, it's gonna pop and that's what you're hearing is the popping of the balloon of air around the electrical discharge.

So the next time you hear thunder, don't be afraid, it's just the sound of all that lightning.

Sometimes it sounds like the storm right on top of you and sometimes it sounds like it's far away.

Did you ever wonder how far away a storm really is?

Well, you can actually use thunder to find out.

Light travels a lot faster than sound.

So, wait for the flash of lightning and then start to count.

For every five seconds that you count that storm is one mile away.

So if I see a flash of lightning and count to 10 before I hear thunder, I know that that lightning is from a storm that is two miles away.

That's a really good way not to be scared during a storm.

You can track how close it is and if it's traveling away.

I hope you'll think of Mid-America Science Museum and our Tesla coil, the next time you see a lightning storm.

Thanks for joining me and goodbye for now.