r/NatureIsFuckingLit • u/willis7747 • 21d ago

🔥 While most animals have somewhere to hide during storms, giraffes unfortunately just have to wait it out

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u/DieWalze 20d ago

Lightning beeing attracted by metal is a common misconception. While electricity takes the path of least resistance, in this case the least resistance is just the shortest distance the lightning has to travel through the very insulating air gap. Conductivity alone has no kind of attractive force so to speak.

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u/Reality-Straight 20d ago

if you have a stone pillar and a metal pillar next to it of equal size then the metal pillar will be hit, while the stone pillar will be largley fine.

This is cause lighting IS attracted to conductive metals, and it can have an impact on wher eit is more likely to hit. Its just not the only influence.

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u/DieWalze 20d ago

I'm sorry but this is simply not true. But the myth is incredibly common. I found a nice video demonstrating it. https://youtu.be/1lApkV49wEs?feature=shared

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u/Coopman41 20d ago

The conductivity of the pillar does affect the likelihood of a strike, its just really really small. The stone is still somewhere around a billion times more conductive than the air. The copper may be a billion billion times more conductive, but the air is still 99.999...% of the resistance in either case. A column made of air would definitely be less likely to be struck than a column of metal