Let's think about Lightning - Smarter Every Day 15

2m read

·Nov 3, 2024

[Music] [Rainfall and thunder] Hey, it's me, Destin.

So I'm gonna explain why thunder sounds the way it does. And uh, we're in the middle of a thunderstorm here, obviously, so I'm going to try to make this quick.

So basically, if you're standing on the ground here, and let's say there's lightning that happens way up in the sky, really far away from you. So what happens is, as soon as it breaks the sound barrier, that sound wave starts traveling towards your body. But also, the speed of the electricity of the lightning bolt is a lot faster than sound, so that... Oh wow, that's going to be a big one. At least I could see it.

So also, that lightning bolt... [Thunder] outruns the sound. So the sound is simultaneously initiated from all points along the lightning bolt, at the same time. So what happens is you get some cracks that happen before other cracks and you get this low rumble. So you might get... [Thunder] a really low rumble, like that.

So what happens is, if the lightning bolt is really really really far away from you, then all the sound might make it to you at the same time. But sometimes you get this long drawn out thunder rumble, and that's because the sound is coming to you at different points from along the bolt. It has to do with the distance of the lightning bolt, your position and the sound.

So there you go. I know that's not in-depth at all, but I'm in the middle of a thunderstorm. But I hope you're smarter every day and you at least get to think about it. Have a good one. [Thunder]

[Music] ...Good at this, so... I'll show you.

Watch his head stay totally stationary as I move his body. I can move his body in pretty much any direction. Captioning in different languages welcome. Please contact Destin if you can help.

Rent inflation, San Francisco affordable housing crises

Nancy Pelosi | The Absolute Chaos Of Insider Trading

View All

Watch: How Animals and People See the World Differently | National Geographic

[Music] What most people think of when they look at the world, they think other animals probably see the world pretty much the same way. Only with time do we realize that, of course, other animals don’t see the same things we see. That takes us to a sort …

Getting Started with Khan Academy and Khan Academy Kids for Remote Learning

All right, hello everybody, and thank you all for taking time out of what’s got to be an incredibly busy day to join us for this webinar. My name is Karen White, and I’m on the product team here at Khan Academy. I’m also the mother of two girls, ages 12 a…

Harmonic series and 𝑝-series | AP®︎ Calculus BC | Khan Academy

For many hundreds of years, mathematicians have been fascinated by the infinite sum which we would call a series of one plus one-half plus one-third plus one-fourth, and you just keep adding on and on and on forever. This is interesting on many layers. O…

Introduction to the semicolon | The Colon and semicolon | Punctuation | Khan Academy

Hello, Garans. In this video, I’m going to tell you about a piece of punctuation called the semicolon, which basically looks like a comma with a period on top of it. The semicolon has a few uses, but the basic sort of standard use is to link two closely r…

Electric current | Physics | Khan Academy

Electricity that lights up a bulb looks very different than lightning strikes, but they’re actually more similar than one might think because they both have electric current. So, let’s understand what electric current is, how they are produced, and also g…

See Why This Island is Canada’s Best Kept Secret | National Geographic

I’m the Alice timepiece that I’ve never been Nova Scotia. Nova Scotia! And this is Halifax, the start of my journey. Keys, please! I’m headed for Cape Breton Island to experience, from some of the people there, what makes this place in the world so unique…

Let's think about Lightning - Smarter Every Day 15

More Articles