I once heard that lightning goes upward from the ground to clouds. Let's investigate to figure...

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I once heard that lightning goes upward from the ground to clouds. Let's investigate to figure out if that makes sense, starting with one fact, and figuring out the rest from there. The fact is that we know that positive charge moves toward the top of a cloud, and negative charge to the bottom of the cloud. 1. The negative charge IN THE GROUND (in the dirt) then would experience a force (from the negative bottom of the cloud) to move it UP to the surface, or DOWN into the Earth? Does the top surface of the Earth then become positively or negatively charged? 2. Describe or draw the electric field lines that result, in the air, between the charges on the bottom of the clouds and the surface of the Earth (you can consider the clouds and ground to be two parallel "plates.") Hint: In which direction would a positive test charge feel a force? 3. Is the charged particle that travels in lightning the positive proton or the negative electron? Hints: which is lighter and more mobile? It is the same one that moves through metals. 4. In which direction would there be a force on this particle to move through the field? And therefore, which direction would lightning travel? (This isn't to say that lightning NEVER travels in the other direction!) 5. A non-related Q: If the distance between two charges is reduced to 1/3 of the previous distance, by what factor will the electrostatic force between the charges change? (Hint: refer to the Coulomb's Law equation.) I once heard that lightning goes upward from the ground to clouds. Let's investigate to figure out if that makes sense, starting with one fact, and figuring out the rest from there. The fact is that we know that positive charge moves toward the top of a cloud, and negative charge to the bottom of the cloud. 1. The negative charge IN THE GROUND (in the dirt) then would experience a force (from the negative bottom of the cloud) to move it UP to the surface, or DOWN into the Earth? Does the top surface of the Earth then become positively or negatively charged? 2. Describe or draw the electric field lines that result, in the air, between the charges on the bottom of the clouds and the surface of the Earth (you can consider the clouds and ground to be two parallel "plates.") Hint: In which direction would a positive test charge feel a force? 3. Is the charged particle that travels in lightning the positive proton or the negative electron? Hints: which is lighter and more mobile? It is the same one that moves through metals. 4. In which direction would there be a force on this particle to move through the field? And therefore, which direction would lightning travel? (This isn't to say that lightning NEVER travels in the other direction!) 5. A non-related Q: If the distance between two charges is reduced to 1/3 of the previous distance, by what factor will the electrostatic force between the charges change? (Hint: refer to the Coulomb's Law equation.)

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