Question

How can lightning reach the speed of light?

How can lightning reach the speed of light?

Homework Answers

Answer #1

Yes, the speed of light in air though, not c, which is the speed of light in a vacuum. While nothing with mass moves at the speed of light, including electrons and plasma, which are moving in a lightning strike, the electric field propagates at the speed of light and so from the time lightning starts moving at one end of a bolt until it starts moving at the other end will be separated by the time it takes the electric field (or light) to travel that distance. Actual particles may never even make it from one end of the lightning strike to the other. Those particles are moving fast, but not at the speed of light. That would be impossible.

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