Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion Physics Forum Microwaved Fireballs

An Israeli Lab has been producing Electrical Fireballs from a Microwave Oven, just a few weeks ago.
They are not quite the Ball Lightning that floats thru walls and glass, but interesting nevertheless.

They produced an Microwave Electric drill (patented), and found that when they removed the microwave drill from the molten hole and switched on a laser, the molten nano-particles and smoke from the hole, formed into a floating electrical ball of fire.

I suspect its a Plasma ball rather than real Ball Lightning, but its a start.
Real Ball-lightning has occasionaly been seen during a thunderstorm, floating slowly down a road etc.
It has even been recorded floating down the aisle of a passenger aircraft in flight.
In the following URL, look at the 'Microwave drill' first, then back click on 'Fireballs' for some actual video clips.
http://www.eng.tau.ac.il/~jerby/jerby.html

An interesting distinction, Mike. If it's a plasma ball then it qualifies as a ball of lightning, because lightning is ionised air, i.e., plasma; but according to this 2002 article (and some others), the nature of what's referred to as ball-lighting is highly controversial:

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20020209/bob8.asp

Evidence suggests that 'ball lighting' is not plasma - i.e., not lightning as-we-know-it. A convincing argument for this is that plasma is hot, and yet 'ball lighning' is consistently reported as moving horizontally, not vertically as one would expect if it actually were plasma.