Overview
- A modern review of ball lightning for the general reader
- Includes first ever evidence on the preferred conditions under which ball lightning is produced
- Now in an expanded and updated second edition which discusses groundbreaking new discoveries
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About this book
Ball lightning is an enigma. These luminous objects that appear occasionally during thunderstorms and can reach several meters in diameter have been a mystery to science for about 200 years. Despite several thousands of reported observations, their nature is still unknown. In this book, well documented cases of ball lightning are described and used to unravel some aspects of this mysterious form of atmospheric electricity. Throughout the book, the author discusses the various facets of the problem in an accessible but rigorous style, delivering a readable and informative text that will captivate the curious reader. Now in an updated and expanded second edition, the author reports on groundbreaking new data on conditions under which ball lightning may form and its implications. These new discoveries are elucidated with new figures, additional case descriptions, new material on the interaction of ball lightning with humans, and a discussion of the reliability of ball lightning observations. This book presents the most up-to-date summary of the state of knowledge surrounding ball lightning.
A foreword by Earle Williams, leading lightning researcher at MIT, introduces the book.
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Table of contents (13 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Herbert Boerner obtained his PhD for experimental work in High Energy Physics from Bonn University in 1981. After postdoc positions at KEK in Japan and CERN in Geneva he joined Philips research in 1986, first working in the Hamburg laboratory, and from 1995 on in the Aachen laboratory. From this year until his retirement in 2012 he worked on the physics and engineering of organic light emitting diodes (OLED).
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Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Ball Lightning
Book Subtitle: A Popular Guide to a Longstanding Mystery in Atmospheric Electricity
Authors: Herbert Boerner
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-02164-9
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Physics and Astronomy, Physics and Astronomy (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2025
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-032-02163-2Published: 26 October 2025
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-032-02166-3Due: 09 November 2026
eBook ISBN: 978-3-032-02164-9Published: 25 October 2025
Edition Number: 2
Number of Pages: XVI, 252
Number of Illustrations: 16 b/w illustrations, 51 illustrations in colour
Topics: Plasma Physics, Atmospheric Sciences, Classical Electrodynamics