When you see a bolt of lighting flow in one direction, it is more a series of bolts that stop and then re-start, giving the impression of the direction the lighting is going. In such cases that is the correct direction for it shows the build up of electrical power and then its next jump and these build up on each other producing what we know as Lighting.

In a Straight bolt, there is NO series of lighting jumps, just one movement of electrical power. Was it downward or upward is anyone's guess, for the actual jump was going at the speed of light, which is much faster then our eyes can handle. Thus we can NOT say if the electrical jump was upward or downward.

Exactly what "current flow" is, is not entirely clear.

Electrons are the "force carriers", not photons.

The migration of those electrons along the path of the bolt is the current flow.

The superheating of the air along the path when the electrons travel through it causes photon emission which is what we see as the flash.

is not distributed continuously throughout an increasingly larger region, but, instead, this energy consists of a finite number of spatially localized energy quanta which, moving without subdividing, can only be absorbed and created in whole units." - Albert Einstein. 1905

Einstein gave the name "photon" to the quantized packets of energy, or the particle form of EM energy. Aurthur Compton won the Nobel Prize in 1927 for demonstrating how photons transfer energy to electrons.

Precise models of "the migration of...electrons" that we call "current flow" are beyond my paltry knowledge. The concept of electron "flow" is a useful metaphor, but it's not meant to be taken literally, as the flow of ordinary things.

Language demand we say that lightening flashes, but lightening is the flash.

It's the Robin song sounds. The song is the sound. Our human minds are limited to separate the world into certain criteria which is language.

I did not mean to be apart of the argument ongoing, nor to propagate Nietzsche POW. The discussion just reminded me of the quote. Does lightening make the photons ( light) or is it the photons itself? It is an interesting discussion.

the simplest picture of the world.

But we were talking about science and not metaphysics. The Nietzsche quote is irrelevant, as are robins.

But nevermind. No need for me to argue just for its own sake. I've never heard of how photons work in regards to electric current; I'll have to look that up.

a.k.a... the light.

It is not talking about the energy in the electric current, which no, is not carried by photons. You are mixing up the force carriers for two completely different kinds of energy.

All energy can be written in terms of light energy. All electric and magnetic fields contain waves, even static fields, and all electromagnetic waves can be modeled quantumly, in terms of photons. And all charged particle interactions can be modeled as an exchange of photons.

Because as you may recall what started all this was the claim that lightning moved at the speed of light because it was composed of photons.



Lightning is not composed of photons, and it does not move at light speed.

And once I get it straight, I'll send out corrections to these people as well.

"A force carrier can convey different messages. Protons and electrons, which have opposite charges, are attracted to one another through the electromagnetic force. The particles that carry that force, called photons, act like love notes." - Symmetry Magazine - Force carriers

"It turns out that all interactions which affect matter particles are due to an exchange of force carrier particles, a different type of particle altogether....For instance, electrons and protons have electric charge, so they can produce and absorb the electromagnetic force carrier, the photon." - The Particle Adventure - The Fundamentals of Matter and Force

"...electromagnetic waves, whether viewed classically or in terms of quantized photons, are not affected by static electrical or magnetic fields. They have no charge. Nevertheless, they do exert electrical and magnetic forces on charged particles and magnetic particles. Viewed classically, they consist of nothing but electrical and magnetic fields propagating through space, so it’s entirely appropriate to call them electromagnetic waves...static electric and magnetic fields also exhibit wave-particle duality. The collision of a charged particle with another (repulsive or attractive) can be modeled as the exchange of photons and you get the same answer as if you had calculated everything with just the classical fields" - University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Department of Physics, Q&A Photons as carriers of the electromagnetic force

"A photon is an elementary particle, the quantum of light and all other forms of electromagnetic radiation. It is the force carrier for the electromagnetic force, even when static via virtual photons. " - Wikipedia

And then the reduction in speed is due to whatever is the insulation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_electricity

This site says 224,000 mph is the speed of electricity:

http://www.komonews.com/weather/faq/4347976.html

Speed of light is 670 million mph, or 186,000 miles per second.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning

Now, the Human Eye can detect things moving at speed. The issue is how fast. Some experiments have indicated that the Human Eye can detect light at quantum speed, i.e. near the speed of light, but only if enough such light enters the eyes:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/human-eyes-entanglement/

http://www.earthlife.net/mammals/vision.html

I was trying to find the article, but it was a comparison of the Visions on Humans/Mammals and the vision of birds. One of the differences is Human/Mammal eyes do NOT send messages to the brain unless they is sufficient "Data" to send. Birds, on the other hand send all visual inputs to the brain. This difference permits the eyes of Mammals to react to inputs without waiting for the brain to react (Close the eyelids quickly if needed for example).

The down side is that the need for sufficient inputs before anything is sent to the brain means we dismiss a lot of minor visual inputs that birds take in (a lot of visual data NEVER makes it to the brain). Thus in the articles above is indications that the Human eye may be able to detect something going the speed of light but MAY not send it to the brain unless the eye picks up sufficient inputs of the object.

Please note what I am discussing above is different from the tendency of the Human Brain to dismiss "non-threats" i.e. we walk by trees all the time, thus the Human eye "sees" the trees and input that data to to the brain, which promptly dismisses them as a non-threat unless we are looking for a tree to chop down. What I am discussing above is the role of the Human Eye is NOT even sending data to the brain to process. Birds eyes do NOT do that, but the eyes of Mammals do.

I bring this up for while lighting is something that will catch our visual attention, some of the things that happen BEFORE we see lighting does NOT provide enough visual data for our eyes to process, so that data NEVER makes it to the brain for processing. This can include parts of a lighting "fork" that appears to occur after earlier parts of the same lighting bolt is detected by our eyes.

224,000 mph is fast, and it may be so fast out eyes can NOT detect where it began or ended. There is SOME indications that the human eye MAY be able to detect such speeds, but only if enough data is supplied.

Just a comment, 224,000 mph is a speed I believe most people will have a tough time determining where the bolt began of ended and if it started on one side or the other.

Of course, the light that is emitted (essentially thermal radiation, the same as turning on an incandescent light bulb) travels at the speed of light.

Step leaders from both the ground and the sky, usually undetectable until a circuit is created, extend toward each other and arc when a connection between the two are made. Charge is exchanged; positive one direction and negative in the opposite.

I believe a small meteor falling at high speed would leave a trail of ionized air behind it which would facilitate lightning following its path. Just speculating.

I understand some of the Reagan-era "star wars" experiments using lasers and particle beams and such were able to induce lightning.

Related: http://phys.org/news/2012-03-laser-lightning-rod-electricity.html