Answer should be sent to my email, the fastest and correct answer will get the p
ID: 1269257 • Letter: A
Question
Answer should be sent to my email, the fastest and correct answer will get the points and it will delivered to you as soon as I get the correct answers back. My email - calculusmind@gmail.com
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A heavy summer rain has just spoiled a fun game of frisbee between you and your friends. As you rush to leave, a bolt of lightning strikes a tree on the other side of the field. Lightning is a form of electrical discharge that occurs when the electric field in a region between the ground and the clouds ionizes the air.
a) You happen to know that a bolt of lightning can unleash between a hundred-million and a billion joules of energy, transferring tens of coulombs of charge between the earth and the sky. Estimate the order of magnitude of the associated voltage difference (enter your answer as an integer representing the power of ten, i.e. find x where 10^x is the order of magnitude).
b) You estimate that the lightning travelled along a vertical distance of about a mile. What was the order of magnitude of the average electric field strength across this distance?
Explanation / Answer
a) E = 1/2 C V^2
and Q = CV
so E = 1/2 Q V
V = 2 E/Q = 2*1.0E9/10 = 2.0E8 volts so 10^8 volts
b) E = V/d
1 mile = 1609 m
Electric field = 10^8/1600 = 6.25E4 so 10^5 V/m