An Experimental Study of Ball Lightning

Abstract

This paper presents a study of one possible form of ball lightning. Plasma spheres several centimeters in diameter were produced in atmospheric pressure air. These spheres persisted for up to a half-second after the power supply was turned off. A mathematical theory was derived that predicts the observed lifetime. The theory predicts that the sphere lifetime should scale as the sphere radius squared, which means that large spheres should persist for many seconds.