Lightning Strike 闪电

Today I would like to share with you some photos of a thunderstorm that I took.

今天想和大家分享一些暴风雨中雷电交加的照片。

I was living in an apartment then, and the balcony looked over enough empty sky that when there was a thunderstorm, I could see the thunder clearly, so one stormy day I decided to bring out my camera, turn off all the lights, and start to take some pictures of the lightning strike

我以前住在一座公寓里，在公寓里的阳台可以很清楚地看到远方的天空。每当打雷闪电时，坐在客厅就可以看见一道道的闪电划空而过，十分震撼。终于有个雷电交加的晚上，我决定拿起我的照相机，关了客厅的灯，到阳台上拍摄雷电。

For those of you who don’t know, thunder is caused by the lightning strike which charges and heats up air surrounding it, causing it to expand rapidly to produce a sonic boom (essentially a dielectric breakdown). I am pretty sure I have mistakenly explained it to 5 years old M that thunder is sound of clouds crashing into each other. I must have confused with how the actual charge that caused the lightning strike is formed (lightning is formed from the discharging of electric charges creating by collision of the water droplets inside or between clouds, essentially creating a current path between cloud and the ground). I feel ashamed as someone who does scientific research to get this simple fact wrong.

五岁的M问我为什么会打雷，我说是因为云和云之间的碰撞产生的能量变成声音。其实闪电才是原于雨云中的水滴碰撞摩擦产生电荷继而形成超高电压，这电压足够让空气从绝缘变成导电（介质崩溃），让电荷变成电流往地面散去，形成闪电。而这电流有着庞大的能量让闪电旁边的空气变热而迅速膨涨，造成音爆才变成雷鸣。身为一个科研人员的我竟然把这原理搞错了，真羞愧！

But at least I got good pictures of the lightning strike! Magnificent isn’t it?

不过至少照片拍得不错，挺震撼的闪电吧？

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