Ball Lightning
The ball lightning is one of the most
mysterious natural phenomena. As shown by the estimate [1], the probability for the ball
lightning to be observed during a year is more than 10-5
and during a human life, no less than 10-3. It means that at
least 0.1% of the people observed this phenomenon. However, no generally adopted theoretical
concept is available to explain the nature of the ball lightning, and it cannot be reproduced
under laboratory conditions. Therefore, the existence of the ball lightning as a physical
phenomenon was doubted for a long time. The skepticism was partly due to the fact that
scientists had to explain many unusual and contradictory properties of the object reported by
causal and inexperienced observers.
The ball lightning is one of the most
mysterious natural phenomena. As shown by the estimate [1], the probability for the ball
lightning to be observed during a year is more than 10-5
and during a human life, no less than 10-3. It means that at
least 0.1% of the people observed this phenomenon. However, no generally adopted theoretical
concept is available to explain the nature of the ball lightning, and it cannot be reproduced
under laboratory conditions. Therefore, the existence of the ball lightning as a physical
phenomenon was doubted for a long time. The skepticism was partly due to the fact that
scientists had to explain many unusual and contradictory properties of the object reported by
causal and inexperienced observers.
Scientific study of the ball lightning
began in the 1830s, when the well-known French physicist Arago analyzed several tens of
eyewitness reports to provide the first correct estimate of the spatial and temporal scale of
the phenomenon. He arrived at the conclusion that the ball lightning did exist and it was a
body comprising a specific substance, which he called the "lightning matter". During the
following century and a half, the Arago's conclusions was argued and developed by many
scientists, but the problem still remains unsolved. The number of the hypotheses available is
more than a hundred and continues to grow without any succession; i.e., every new hypothesis
refutes the previous ones rather than develop them.
A radical turn in the study of the ball lightning was outlined in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and it was associated with the name of our compatriot I P Stakhanov. In October 1973, he spoke at the Scientific Session of the Department of General Physics and Astronomy of the USSR Academy of Sciences and proposed an original hypothesis of cluster nature of the ball lightning. I.P.Stakhanov used nontraditional approach to study this poorly investigated phenomenon. He arranged a broad questioning of eyewitnesses of the ball lightning through the "Nauka i Zhizn" ( Science and Life) magazine. As a result, about 2000 new descriptions of the phenomenon were gathered in the early 1980s, 1500 of which were the answers to the questionnaire published in the magazine. Thus, the number of descriptions of the ball lightning gathered during five years from 1976 through 1981 exceeded the number of the events ever reported before in the scientific literature.
Processing and analysis of the gathered material made it possible to isolate the object under discussion from the variety of events and prove its existence. The monograph by I.P.Stakhanov "The Physical Nature of Ball Lightning", which appeared in 1979, made the physical community overcome a skeptical attitude to the problem. The first scientific discussion of the topic at international level was held during the 15th International Conference on Phenomena in Ionized Gasses (ICPIG-15, Minsk). In his plenary lecture "The Nature of the Ball Lightning", I.P.Stakhanov showed that the important preliminary stage in the study of the phenomenon was completed as its qualitative and quantitative pattern was developed. The conclusions and paradoxes following from the analysis of observations allowed the hypotheses available to be verified and the future experiments to be planned. The second, revised and supplemented, edition of the book appeared in 1985. At the same time, the topic was included in the research plan of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The first session of the Gas Discharge Panel of the Coordination Council of the USSR Academy of Sciences devoted to the long-lived plasma features and ball lightning was held in July 1986 in Yaroslavl. Since autumn 1986, a monthly seminar on the ball lightning began working in Moscow under the leadership of I.P.Stakhanov. His death at the beginning of 1987 interrupted this work.
Unfortunately, observations remain the only source of our knowledge of the ball lightning. Nobody has still succeeded in reproducing the phenomenon under controlled laboratory conditions. However, the work by
I.P.Stakhanov based on a thorough analysis of observational data stimulates experimental studies in the right direction. Familiarity with his monograph is necessary to make progress in the field under consideration. It is a unique book, which has no analog either in national or foreign literature. Three forth of the book (the first two chapters) is devoted to the description and analysis of observations and does not deal with the nature of the object. Thus, the facts are strictly separates from the attempts of their explanation. This part is written in a catching manner. It does not require special knowledge and can be interesting to a broad reader. The rest of the book is compact. It deals mainly with the cluster hypothesis and is meant for the experts. The third, posthumous edition of the book was reviewed by academician V.D.Shafranov. It is a pity that the monograph [1] was published only in Russian and is inaccessible for to world scientific community.
At present, the data gathered by I.P.Stakhanov following a specific method form a unique database comprising detailed and compatible descriptions of a great number of events, which can be processes by up-to-date statistical methods. More than a third of these data were verified by the second questionnaire. Systematization and further analysis of this unique database is carried out at IZMIRAN within the RFBR grant (project no. 00-02-16256). In this connection, we ask the eyewitnesses of the ball lightning to answer the questionnaire.