Heya all,
My friend and I got into a conversation/discussion last night and it got us wondering.
Let’s say you have the best of luck and your car gets struck my lightning whilst your in the car/driving. We sort of know about the box of Faraday but that left us with even more questions.
In: Physics
Electricity follows the easiest, least resistive path to settle to no energy. For lightning, one of these paths is to the earth. Any object that has better conductance than plain air is good for directing lightning.
Other people have already talked about how the car offers a better path but around your body, so that the lightning doesn’t have to flow through your body.
There can be cases where it could travel through your body, like if you had a leg out of your car, because the rubber tires might not conduct to ground as well as your leg can.
Rubber tires prevent discharge to ground even in petrol trucks, which is why sometimes they have a chain that drags close to the ground used for discharging static electricity through an easier path.
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