认识电力(2)

Well, we do similar things. He, he didn't think his kite was going to get struck, and he thought that if it was going to get struck that he wouldn't get hurt.

So, he was wrong there. If the kite had been struck, he probably would have been killed, as have many people flying kites.

They load a rocket and launch it into the belly of a thundercloud. From the rocket's tail, a spool of copper wire unwinds creating a path for the lightning to follow.

There's a level of excitement and tension before you push the button, and then there's a level of, of holding your breath for two seconds when the rocket goes up that's unlike anything else.

And, success feels real good because we, you know, we only make it happen . . . twenty, twenty-five times a summer, so every one is a, is a big deal. It's like a rocket-powered lightning rod.

Once the wire is shot up into the air the lightning hits it. In an instant, the electric current of the bolt moves down the wire disintegrating it into a green vapor.

What flows down the lightning at fifty thousand amps is the same thing that flows in your wall at ten amps. The temperature of a lightning bolt is more than fifty thousand degrees Fahrenheit, six times hotter than the surface of the sun.

All that heat and light is generated by uncounted numbers of electrons being forced to move. An atom's nucleus has a positive charge.

Electrons orbiting the nucleus have a negative charge. When electric current flows, electrons are torn from atoms and move freely.

Electricity is the flow of electrical charge, and most of the charge flows as, as electrons moving. Whenever there's an oversupply of electrons an object develops an overall negative charge.