blaster fire=ball lightning? (Hypothetical energy weapon #3)

[HyperionX]

According to this essay by Darth Wong here clearly demostrate the impracticality of "plasma" weapons (blasters, PPG, disruptors, etc).They are highly impractical for several reasons:

1. Energy bolts moves very slowly, ie subsonic
2. Apparenlty unaffected by gravity
3. Needs to contain a lot of energy in a single self contained bolt that somehow is contained
4. Buoyancy issues (doesn't float, doesn't dissipate in air, moves straight, etc.)

It would clearly seem that a plasma weapon is highly impractical for above reasons. However, there exists a natural phenomenon that demostrates nearly all of the above properties: Ball lightning. According to this and this, they have the following properties:

1. Near neutral buoyancy in air
2. Is remarkably stable, stays contained for an average of 5 seconds and up to several minutes
2. Packs an enormous amount of energy: eyewitness accounts describe something that must have packed around 1 million joules of energy or more
4. Acts like a physical object (bounces off walls and floors).
5. Can changes shapes and move through cracks in the wall.
6. "Usually totally silent, but sometimes emmits a buzzing, hissing, or crackling sound."
7. "In all cases, the ball either floated out of sight, exploded with a loud gunshot sounding bang, or silently disintegrated."
8. Unaffected by wind or turbulence

Now that's a damn close fit. Is it possible that all sci-fi plasma weapons we've seen merely some sort of ball lightning? The characteristics are remarkably similar. And if so, is it possible to build such a weapon? The only problem I see is that we have little idea what ball lightning actually is! Making a realistic analysis rather difficult.

[HyperionX]

Let me make a correction:

1. Energy bolts moves very slowly, ie subsonic
2. Apparenlty unaffected by gravity
3. Needs to contain a lot of energy in a single self contained bolt that's somehow relatively stable.
4. Energy bolt acts like a single physical object
5. Buoyancy issues (doesn't float, doesn't dissipate in air, moves straight, etc.)

[felineki]

A very interesting idea... I had heard of ball lighning and its bizarre properties in the past. Since we don't seem to know much about the underlying physics of this pheneomenon, we can't definitively say that sci-fi energy weapons -aren't- ball lightning, like we can with lasers or plasma.

[McC]

One immediate problem that springs to mind with declaring that SW blasters are ball-lightning-guns is that the technology between blasters and turbolasers should be identical. "Lightning" of any kind requires a medium through which to travel. You don't have that in space. Thus, no ball lightning.

[SPOOFE]

Your description of ball lightning is incomplete, mostly because accounts of ball lightning behavior are often mutually exclusive. Many have described it passing through walls and doors.... others say it will stick to physically passable routes. People have supposedly been "struck" by ball lightning with no apparent result... others have seen ball lightning explode in a blinding flash. Some have seen ball lightning moving at only a few feet per second, other accounts have it racing along at ridiculous speeds.

It's a fascinating phenomenon, but it took decades for reputable scientists to even acknowledge that it exists, and as Felineki said, we don't really know what it actually is or how it's formed.

[HyperionX]

Your description of ball lightning is incomplete, mostly because accounts of ball lightning behavior are often mutually exclusive. Many have described it passing through walls and doors.... others say it will stick to physically passable routes. People have supposedly been "struck" by ball lightning with no apparent result... others have seen ball lightning explode in a blinding flash. Some have seen ball lightning moving at only a few feet per second, other accounts have it racing along at ridiculous speeds.

From my analysis ball lightning is very consistent. It never passes through anything except for cracks in a wall or glass. Otherwise it acts like a physical object. No one I aware of have been struck by ball lightning (or at least lived to tell about it). Exploding ball lightning is a consistently observed phenomena and the speed has been known to change. For the most part, all observed ball lightning is a "ball" that glows and moves in the air and is stable for extended periods of time.

It's a fascinating phenomenon, but it took decades for reputable scientists to even acknowledge that it exists, and as Felineki said, we don't really know what it actually is or how it's formed.

There is some theories out there, though they are more like hypothesises. However, if one where to stick to observed properties it is feasible as an energy weapon, and at the very least an explanation if not the only explanation of "plasma" weapons.