Concept
Lightning
Overview
Lightning is a natural phenomenon consisting of electrostatic discharges occurring through the atmosphere between two electrically charged regions. One or both regions are within the atmosphere, with the second region sometimes occurring on the ground. Following the lightning, the regions become partially or wholly electrically neutralized.
Lightning involves a near-instantaneous release of energy on a scale averaging between 200 megajoules and 7 gigajoules. The air around the lightning flash rapidly heats to temperatures of about 30,000 °C (54,000 °F). There is an emission of electromagnetic radiation across a wide range of wavelengths, some visible as a bright flash. Lightning also causes thunder, a sound from the shock wave which develops as heated gases in the vicinity of the discharge experience a sudden increase in pressure.
The most common occurrence of a lightning event is known as a thunderstorm, though they can also commonly occur in other types of energetic weather systems, such as volcanic eruptions. Lightning influences the global atmospheric electrical circuit and atmospheric chemistry and is a natural ignition source of wildfires. Lightning is considered an Essential Climate Variable by the World Meteorological Organization, and its scientific study is called fulminology.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
In the original texts
Passages from public-domain books where Lightning is discussed.
And I, though I knew I should get no great credit by proposing a cause whose reason was common to other things, said thus: Lightning is wonderfully piercing and subtile, partly because it rises from a very pure substance, and partly because by the swiftness of its motion it purges itself and throws off all gross earthy particles that are mixed with it. Nothing, says Democritus, is blasted with lightning, that cannot…
Plutarch, Complete Works of Plutarch — Volume 3
names the idea; states what it is; opens on it
It is possible also that the spirit, whatever it be, may be kindled by friction, when it is so violently projected. It is possible that, by the dashing of the two clouds, the lightning may flash out, as is the case when two stones are struck against each other.
the Elder Pliny, The Boys' and Girls' Pliny
a chapter is titled for it; names the idea
“This lightning is so sweet to all beings and all beings are sweet to this lightning,” but the self-effulgent and immortal One is the soul of this lightning, and is also in us, because all is that _Brahman_. This _Brahman_, this _Âtman_, this Self, is the King of all beings. These ideas are very helpful to men; they are for meditation.
Swami Vivekananda, Jnâna Yoga, Part II
states what it is; names the idea; opens on it
in the misleading errors of language (and the fundamental fallacies of reason which have become petrified therein), which understands, and understands wrongly, all working as conditioned by a worker, by a "subject." And just exactly as the people separate the lightning from its flash, and interpret the latter as a thing done, as the working of a subject which is called lightning, so also does the popular morality…
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Genealogy of Morals The Complete Works, Volume Thirteen, edited by Dr. Oscar Levy.
states what it is; names the idea
It must not be supposed that the various states of different physical objects have the same time-order as the sense-data which constitute the perceptions of those objects. Considered as physical objects, the thunder and lightning are simultaneous; that is to say, the lightning is simultaneous with the disturbance of the air in the place where the disturbance begins, namely, where the lightning is. But the…
Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy
states what it is; names the idea
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Place in the tradition
Part of American philosophy.