Re: Potentially stupid question about AC

[CUTblakeney@home.com (Jeff Blakeney)]

On 20 Aug 1999 07:58:02 GMT, supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer) wrote:

>I understand lighting tries to reach the ground because the
>friction between the air and the ground causes a static
>charge to build up.
>
>Ok, but that's obviously balance.  Where the static charge
>is an imbalance, the electrons want to go from the ground
>back to the sky and zap, lightning.

Sort of.  Lightning is simply created by the imbalance of electric
charge between the ground (or objects on the ground) and the sky.  The
charge will flow from whichever has the positive charge to the one
with the negative charge.  I won't get into the two theories on
electron "flow" at this point, just think about it this way: positive
charge means it has an extra electrons; negative charge means it is
short of electrons.  The extra electrons flow from the positive pole
to the extra space at the negative pole.