Re: Thunderstorms
Originally Posted by
JBR
->
On the contrary, a metal-bodied car is a safe place during a thunderstorm. Any electrical field will exist around the Faraday cage and there will be no discharge within the car.
You might hear a big bang, though.
I'm talking about massive discharges, not just a poxy little lightning discharge (!).
The effect even applies to a metal sphere wherein the steady state field within the sphere is of course zero BUT where very very fast pulses are involved with very high currents there is a very short period while the sphere charges and it is in that time that a changing field takes place.
It's bloody fast and to all intents of no practical value or significance where a car is thumped with a lightning bolt but once you get into the nitty gritty --- and it's a bloody good exam question along with possible applications and effects! Fission bomb design is one area that this has relevance.
Probably not much use in a car during an electric storm though unless ball lighting ?
(And that's not some form of localised weight loss!)