Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

Ball Lightning

A Popular Guide to a Longstanding Mystery in Atmospheric Electricity

  • Book
  • © 2019

Overview

Authors:
  1. Herbert Boerner

    1. Mainz, Germany

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

  • Introduced with a foreword by Earle Williams, leading MIT lightning researcher

  • A modern review of ball lightning for the general reader

  • Includes many striking photos

  • Includes new results linking ball lightning to "normal" lightning physics

  • Separates facts from fiction in ball lightning research

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this book

Log in via an institution
eBook USD 34.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 44.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book USD 44.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access

Licence this eBook for your library

Institutional subscriptions

Table of contents (13 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xiv
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Introduction

    • Herbert Boerner
    Pages 1-2

  3. Ball Lightning: Observers’ Tales

    • Herbert Boerner
    Pages 3-8

  4. The Search for Photographic Evidence

    • Herbert Boerner
    Pages 9-19

  5. A Bit of Philosophy, or What Has a Razor to Do with Ball Lightning?

    • Herbert Boerner
    Pages 21-28

  6. Organizing and Analyzing the Observations

    • Herbert Boerner
    Pages 29-49

  7. Electrical Discharges, Coronas, and Streamers

    • Herbert Boerner
    Pages 51-56

  8. Thunderstorms and Lightning

    • Herbert Boerner
    Pages 57-81

  9. BL: Well Documented Cases of Copious Production

    • Herbert Boerner
    Pages 83-93

  10. The Link Between Lightning Physics and Ball Lightning

    • Herbert Boerner
    Pages 95-98

  11. Some People Just Won’t Believe It: The Skeptic’s View

    • Herbert Boerner
    Pages 99-108

  12. Ball Lightning Theories

    • Herbert Boerner
    Pages 109-126

  13. BL Experiments

    • Herbert Boerner
    Pages 127-149

  14. Wrapping It All Up

    • Herbert Boerner
    Pages 151-154

  15. Back Matter

    Pages 155-205
    Download chapter PDF
Back to top

Keywords

About this book

Ball lightning is an enigma. These luminous objects that appear occasionally during thunderstorms and can reach several meters in diameter have been a mystery to science for about 200 years. Despite several thousands of reported observations, their nature is still unknown. In this book, well documented cases of ball lightning are described and used to unravel some aspects of this mysterious form of atmospheric electricity. Throughout the book, the author discusses the various facets of the problem in an accessible but rigorous style, delivering a readable and informative text that will captivate the curious reader. He finally reaches the surprising conclusion that the solution to this puzzle may have been hidden in plain sight for many years. 

A foreword by Earle Williams, leading lightning researcher at MIT, introduces the book.



Reviews

“This very readable and informative work is well constructed … . At the end of each chapter Boerner gives a bullet-point summary of all the important points discussed in that chapter; this I found invaluable. … Anyone with a background in physics and mathematics will easily be able to follow Boerner’s informative text. I will go as far as saying anyone with a curious mind, even without the background knowledge, will find it difficult to put this book down.” (Graham Denye, Weather, June 8, 2021)

Authors and Affiliations

  • Mainz, Germany

    Herbert Boerner

About the author

Herbert Boerner obtained his PhD for experimental work in High Energy Physics from Bonn University in 1981. After postdoc positions at KEK in Japan and CERN in Geneva he joined Philips research in 1986, first working in the Hamburg laboratory, and from 1995 on in the Aachen laboratory. From this year until his retirement in 2012 he worked on the physics and engineering of organic light emitting diodes (OLED).

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Ball Lightning

  • Book Subtitle: A Popular Guide to a Longstanding Mystery in Atmospheric Electricity

  • Authors: Herbert Boerner

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20783-0

  • Publisher: Springer Cham

  • eBook Packages: Physics and Astronomy, Physics and Astronomy (R0)

  • Copyright Information: Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-20782-3Published: 16 July 2019

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-20785-4Published: 14 August 2020

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-20783-0Published: 03 July 2019

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XIV, 205

  • Number of Illustrations: 8 b/w illustrations, 49 illustrations in colour

  • Topics: Popular Science in Physics, Atmospheric Sciences, Plasma Physics, Geophysics and Environmental Physics

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Back to top

Search

Navigation