A cloud-to-ground lightning bolt can be modeled as a parallel plate capacitor discharge, with Earth’s surface and the bottom of the cloud forming the two plates. A particular bolt of lightning passes to the ground from a cloud bottom at a height of 300 m. The bolt transfers a total charge of 5C and a total energy of 500 MJ to the ground, with an average current of 50 kA. How long did the lightning bolt last? What was the electric field strength in the cloud–earth capacitor just before it discharged?How does this electric field compare with the breakdown field of air (3MV/m)? (It is now known that various effects cause lightning to begin at fields that are considerably smaller than the breakdown field.)