Electrical lighting (I think it’s called that) and why is it silent? How does it happen when a storm isn’t happening?
In: Physics
It’s not silent, the expansion due to heating the air and it’s subsequent collapse generates a good deal of sound at the same time as the flash. It’s just that the strike is usually a fair distance away. The light from the flash reaches us almost instantaneously travelling the speed of light. The sound travels more slowly at the speed of sound so gets to us a few seconds per mile later. So although they start off together they reach us separately.
If you are talking about heat lightning, then it is just a normal thunder storm that happens so far away that you can see it but you can’t hear it. It also is called summer lightning, dry lightning or silent lightning.
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