thunder and lightening

Ah... gone are the days when the TV had to be unplugged and the aerial pulled out incase the one on the roof was hit :p Common practice when I was little.
 
Mr^B said:
It's OK with just thunder. As long as there's no lightning you'll be fine.
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:D Both my brother and sister actually thought that you could get lightning without the thunder and vice versa. I had to explain to them that the thunder is the sound of the lightening, but light travels faster than sound so you see the flash then hear the thunder.

I wouldn't mind but my sister is 25 and is a manager :rolleyes:.
 
Lightening = weight reduction.

Lighting = you know what that is.

Sort it out folks, the UK schooling system isn't that bad.

Skellingtons and chimbleys.
 
Why do we as people feel the need to give the noise that lightning makes a seperate name?

If we see a car passing we don't say "oh look, there's a car & broom broom". Or if we see fire we don't say "oh look, there's some fire & crackling". Why the need for "Thunder & Lightning", when, to be fair, it's just lightning.

Sorry, just wondering aloud ;)
 
Because usually when we see one, we hear the other (i.e. the sound it makes).

With thunder or lightening that isn't always the case. Lightening can occur very high up so that it's essentially invisible to the observer on the ground, but he may still hear it. Or he may see it from miles away, but the sound's dissipated by the time it reaches the observer.
 
Greenlizard0 said:
Because usually when we see one, we hear the other (i.e. the sound it makes).

With thunder or lightening that isn't always the case. Lightening can occur very high up so that it's essentially invisible to the observer on the ground, but he may still hear it. Or he may see it from miles away, but the sound's dissipated by the time it reaches the observer.
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Sometimes I hear a car without seeing it. I usually say "I can hear a car", not "I can hear brooming". Why can we not just hear lightning without seeing it?

i.e. "I can hear Lightning", or "I can see lightning", or "I can see and hear lightning".
 
I was working on my PC once when a thumderstorm hit.

A large flash and instant bang later took my router, fax machine, video recorder and microwave out of service permanently.

Quite scary when you are sat there using the PC and your monitor suddenly flashes white and the PC reboots...
 
i unplug my PC and other expensive equipment from the mains and phoneline as a matter of course when there's a thunderstorm. i know how "surge protectors" work, and the cheap ones aren't worth the plastic they're made from in terms of surge protection w/regard to lightning strikes.

if there's something important that i need to do on the internet i'll just use the laptop on battery until the storm passes.
 
neodude said:
Why do we as people feel the need to give the noise that lightning makes a seperate name?

If we see a car passing we don't say "oh look, there's a car & broom broom". Or if we see fire we don't say "oh look, there's some fire & crackling". Why the need for "Thunder & Lightning", when, to be fair, it's just lightning.

Sorry, just wondering aloud ;)
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My guess is that when the words were invented, people didn't know they were two results of the same cause.

Using your argument, we shouldn't call it lightning either. That's just another symptom of the event, like thunder is. Thunder and lightning, to continue your metaphor, is like wind noise and engine noise in a car.
 
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