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Bibliography

Physics-Uspekhi 40(10)

 

The book on the nature of the ball lightning

V.D.Shafranov

On the physical nature of the ball lightning. I.P.Stakhanov
(Moscow: Nauchnyi Mir, 1996) p.264
PACS numbers: 52.80.-s. 52.90.+z

          The Russian Fund for Basic Research made a very big and useful affair by having supported a new post-mortem edition of the book by I.P.Stakhanov On the physical nature of the ball lightning (project 96-02-30084). All the content of the 1985 edition, which became a bibliographic rarity, is conserved in the new edition and some additions are included. First of all, these are materials of studies made by I.P.Stakhanov himself which have not been included into the previous edition and were partially published in the periodicals and partially unpublished at all and restored by I.G.Stakhanova using the author's archive. The afterword is written by O.A.Sinkevich and reviews the current status of the problem.
          The book provides a serious analysis of the eyewitness descriptions of rarely observed , mostly during lightstorms, luminous phenomena with a high energy storage that is called ball lightning. The statistical analysis of the results of an unprecedentedly broad poll of the eyewitnesses made by the author through the monthly 'Nauka i zhizn' (Science and Life) by the initiative of S L Lopatnikov and I P Stakhanov and the comparison of these studies with the material collected in other countries allows the sufficiently definite conclusion about the most probable external characteristics of the phenomenon, including the duration of the existence (up to tens of seconds), the diameter of the ball lightning (10-15 cm), its color (mostly orange or white), and others. The statistics of these data together with the analysis of the ball lightning behavoir make little probable the point of view of the sceptics that this is an apparent phenomenon connected with a peculiarity of the physiology of the eye vision, and the reader, after the author, becomes completely sure that this phenomenon really exists. The secondary information deduced from the descriptions with taking into account physical laws concerning the density, temperature, energy, surface tension, electromagnetic radiation in different bands and other appearances of the electromagnetic properties of the ball lightning, allows the author to formulate main criteria the hypotheses on its nature suggested at different time must meet, and to criticise the hypotheses contradicting the estimates of the aforementioned physical parameters.
          The book also describes the cluster hypothesis suggested by I.P.Stakhanov himself in 1973-1975, which appears to me the most natural and argumented in comparison with other hypotheses. According to I.P.Stakhanov's idea, the ball lightning consists of an unusual plasma - a mixture of positive and negative ions surrounded by neutral molecules with a large dipole momentum (for example, molecules of water). According to the idea, the molecular coating impedes the recombination of the ions, which explains the prolonged existence of the plasma in a metastable state. The estimates given by the author, which can be traced by the reader with a sufficient background in physics, self-consistently explain many peculiarities of the ball lightning behavoir under minimal assumptions about still unknown properties of the cluster plasma. A review of work done in the last 10 years that appeared already after the death of I.P.Stakhanov confirms these estimates (see the afterwords).
          The main part of the book is available for the broad reader. Written with enthusiasm by a live language, the book is read with a great interest. The critical author's discussion of the existing information on the properties of the ball lightning teaches the reader and possible future observers the scientific approach to the consideration of similar phenomena. And the increase in the cultural level of the eyewitnesses, as the author correctly notes at the beginning of the book, should impact the quality of the information reported. It in this way that one should expect the progress in solving the mystery of a phenomenon, at least until it cannot be reproduced in the laboratory conditions. However, as follows from the book, the present level of understanding of the problem makes no doubts in the necessity to stimulate the laboratory researches. It is not excluded that the demystification of the ball lightning could lead to the construction of novel means of the energy storage.
          The first editions of I P Stakhanov's book received positive estimations in the literature in reviews by prof.A A Rukhadze [Usp.Fiz.Nauk 131 (1) 75 (1980)], by Dr.V I Kogan [Priroda (8) 124 (1980)], etc.
          I completely join these estimations and believe that the book represents a really significant contribution to studies in the long-known but rare natural phenomenon. Its values is not only in acquainting the reader with this phenomenon and its possible explanations, but primarily in that in fact it teaches the correct methodological approach in studying the problems similar to those discussed in the book.

Uspekhi Fizicheskikh Nauk 167 (10) 1134-1134 (1997)
Translated by K A Postnov

 

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