Fulminology in the year 1713

In his efforts to explain how Torah views are absolute truth were as philosopy and science is only in the realm of the possible the כוזרי שני bring four opinions as to how lighting forms. As I was reading the theories I figured I would do a quick look up on wikipedia to see if the issue was resolved yet. I was surprised to find that it had not! As a nice coinsidence, there were also four theories mentioned in the wikipedia article. I thought I would share with you the four from כוזרי שני as well as the 4 mentioned in Wikipedia.

Short hand from כוזרי שני:

1)Aristotle:Warm, thick steam rises from the earth very quickly and pushes the cloud from all sides. They try to escape from inside the cloud since the cloud is cold and wet while the steam is hot and dry. Because when it finaly escapes, it flames up, ripping through the cloud. This is when you see the lightning and hear the thunder.

2)Katisiv (descartes):The lightning is made out of steam from nitro(glycerin) and sulfur that is in the cloud tops. Since clouds ride one on top of the other, because of their various weights, when a cloud starts to become heavier, it can fall on the top of a cloud below it. When it falls on the nitro/sulfur steam, the presssure lights up the steam in its attempt to escape. Since the top cloud is heavier in the middle the fire has a path of escape, but not completely. It therefore pushes through with a great strength through parts of the cloud. This causes the thunder.

3)-The כוזרי שני adds that just like you find lighting by volcanos (like in cicily on mount itna -mungbilo or next to naples on mount vesuviav - munti di suma or in nicaragua or on mount hikna iceland) - the chemists make a powder from gold and they put it on a cap of copper, silver or iron and heat it up. It then makes a big noise. it will even make a hole in the iron. There is another powder that is made of 3 parts nitro and two parts salts from the bottom of wine barrels -tartaro and one part sulfur. If a cloud were to have these things in them, with a little heat, it could cause the lightning (even without a cloud above it.)

4)The opinion of the כוזרי שני himself: Just like a magnifying glass can light a fire, so to the clouds can have these shapes and when the sun shines through them it causes a fire. Even at night, the sun may be shining still at an altitude that affects the cloud. Like it says "May I be from those that take in shabbos in teveria and go out in tzipori - (kol kisvei 18B)

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A short hand of the Wikipedia brought theories:

1)Electrostatic induction hypothesis

Charges are driven apart by as-yet uncertain processes. Charge separation appears to require strong updrafts which carry water droplets upward, supercooling them to between -10 and -20 °C. These collide with ice crystals to form a soft ice-water mixture called graupel. The collisions result in a slight positive charge being transferred to ice crystals, and a slight negative charge to the graupel. Updrafts drive the less heavy ice crystals upwards, causing the cloud top to accumulate increasing positive charge. Gravity causes the heavier negatively charged graupel to fall toward the middle and lower portions of the cloud, building up an increasing negative charge. Charge separation and accumulation continue until the electrical potential becomes sufficient to initiate a lightning discharge, which occurs when the distribution of positive and negative charges forms a sufficiently strong electric field.

2)Polarization mechanism hypothesis

The polarization mechanism has two components:1. Falling droplets of ice and rain become electrically polarized as they fall through the Earth's natural electric field;2. Colliding ice particles become charged by electrostatic induction.

3) Heinz Kasemir's theory: As a thundercloud moves over the surface of the Earth, an electric charge equal to but opposite the charge of the base of the thundercloud is induced in the Earth below the cloud. The induced ground charge follows the movement of the cloud, remaining underneath it.

An initial bipolar discharge, or path of ionized air, starts from a negatively charged mixed water and ice region in the thundercloud. Discharge ionized channels are known as leaders.

When a stepped leader approaches the ground, the presence of opposite charges on the ground enhances the strength of the electric field.  As the field increases, the positive streamer may evolve into a hotter, higher current leader which eventually connects to the descending stepped leader from the cloud. When the electric field becomes strong enough, an electrical discharge (the bolt of lightning) occurs.

The electrical discharge rapidly superheats the discharge channel, causing the air to expand rapidly and produce a shock wave heard as thunder. The rolling and gradually dissipating rumble of thunder is caused by the time delay of sound coming from different portions of a long stroke.

4)Gurevich's runaway breakdown theory theory of lightning initiation, known as the "runaway breakdown theory", proposed by Aleksandr Gurevich of the Lebedev Physical Institute in 1992 suggests that lightning strikes are triggered by cosmic rays which ionize atoms, releasing electrons that are accelerated by the electric fields, ionizing other air molecules and making the air conductive by a runaway breakdown, then "seeding" a lightning strike.

For all you Zelda fans out there, they apparently how not yet figured out where tektites come from either. :)

דבר אחר, וה' נתן קולו, אלו הרעמים שקולן הולך לפני חילו של הקדוש ברוך הוא. שכיון שהרעם יוצה, הוא מרעים והבריות  יודעים שהגשמים יורדין. וכשהרעם יוצה, הברק בא אחריו. – מדרש תנחומה פרשת וישלח 

"...Hashem gives forth his voice before his army..." (Yoel 2) This refers to the thunder, who's voice goes before the army of the holy-one-blessed-be-he. Once the thunder comes out, it thunders and the creations know that the rains are coming. And when the thunder comes out, the lighting comes right after.

-Medrash Tanchuma, Va'yishlach, paragraph 2

In this analogy, the thunder is the voice before the army, while the army is the deadly lightning bolt strike. The thunder coming before the lightning is like the great noise of an army before its attack.