Name: 如果地球上所有的閃電都同時擊中同一個地方會怎樣？ (What if all the lightning on Earth struck the same place at once?)
Uploaded: 2025-06-12T21:01:20.000Z
Duration: 3 min 47 s

This question comes from Trevor, who asks,

"If all the lightning that occurs worldwide on any given day all struck in the same place at once, what would happen to that place?"

「如果世界上任何一天發生的所有閃電都同時劈在同一個地方，那個地方會怎麼樣？」

They say lightning never strikes in the same place twice.

俗話說，閃電從來不會在同一個地方擊中兩次。

And it's a little surprising that the saying has survived.

令人驚訝的是，這句話竟然流傳了下來。

You'd think people who believed it would have been gradually filtered out.

你會覺得相信這些話的人會逐漸被過濾掉。

People often wonder whether we could harvest electrical power from lightning.

人們經常想知道，我們是否能從閃電中獲取電能。

After all, lightning is electricity, and lightning strikes seem pretty powerful.

畢竟，閃電是電，而雷擊看起來威力很大。

The problem is, a lightning strike is over so fast that the total amount of energy delivered isn't that extreme,

問題是，雷擊結束得太快，所產生的能量總量並沒有那麼大，

and in any case, it's very hard to get lightning to strike where you want it.

而且無論如何，要讓雷電擊中你想要擊中的地方是非常困難的。

A typical lightning strike delivers enough energy to power a residential house for about two days.

一次典型的雷擊所產生的能量足以為一座民宅提供大約兩天的電力。

That means that even the Empire State Building, which is struck by lightning about 100 times a year,

這意味著即使是每年被閃電擊中約 100 次的帝國大廈，

wouldn't be able to keep a house running on lightning power alone.

也無法僅靠雷電維持房屋運轉。

Even in regions of the world with a lot of lightning, such as Florida and the Eastern Congo rainforest,

即使是在世界上雷電多發的地區，如佛羅里達州和剛果東部雨林。

the power delivered to the ground by sunlight outweighs the power delivered by lightning by a factor of a million.

太陽光輸送到地面的能量要比閃電輸送的能量大一百萬倍。

This makes sense because ultimately lightning is powered by sunlight.

這是有道理的，因為閃電最終是由陽光驅動的。

Generating power from lightning is kind of like building a wind turbine powered by tornadoes.

利用閃電發電有點像利用龍捲風建造風力渦輪機。

In Trevor's scenario, all the lightning hits the world in one place, that would make power generation a lot more attractive.

在特雷弗的設想中，世界上所有的閃電都集中在一個地方，這將使發電變得更有吸引力。

By happen in the same place, let's assume that the lightning bolts all come down in parallel right up against each other.

在同一地點發生。讓我們假設所有閃電都是平行落下的，相互緊貼。

The main channel of a lightning bolt, the part that's actually carrying current, is about a centimeter or two in diameter.

閃電的主通道，也就是實際攜帶電流的部分，直徑約為一兩釐米。

Our bundle contains about a million separate bolts, which means it'll be about 6 meters in diameter.

我們的捆綁系統包含約一百萬個獨立螺栓，這意味著它的直徑約為 6 米。

Hitting a region of the ground the size of the center circle of a basketball court.

擊打地面的區域大小相當於籃球場的中心圓。

Every science writer always compares everything to the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, so we may as well get that out of the way.

每一位科普作家總是把所有事情都與投在廣島的原子彈相提並論，所以我們不妨先把這個問題說清楚。

The lightning bolt would deliver about two atomic bombs worth of energy to the air and ground.

這道閃電將向空中和地面提供大約兩顆原子彈的能量。

From a more practical standpoint, this is enough energy to power a game console and TV for several million years.

從更實際的角度來看，這些能量足以為遊戲機和電視機提供幾百萬年的電力。

Or to put it another way, it could support the US's electricity consumption for 5 minutes.

或者換一種說法，它可以支持美國 5 分鐘的用電量。

The bolt itself would only be as narrow as the center circle of a basketball court, but it would leave a crater the size of the entire court.

螺栓本身只有籃球場中心圓那麼窄，但它會留下一個整個球場那麼大的坑。

Inside the channel, the air would turn to high energy plasma.

在通道內，空氣會變成高能等離子體。

The light and heat from the bolt would spontaneously ignite surfaces for miles around, the shock wave would flatten trees and demolish buildings.

炮彈產生的光和熱會自發點燃周圍數英里的物體表面，衝擊波會夷平樹木，摧毀建築物。

All in all, the Hiroshima comparison isn't far off.

You might hope you could collect the energy of the bolt using a lightning rod.

你可能希望用避雷針收集閃電的能量。

The mechanism by which lightning rods work is actually disputed.

避雷針的運作機制實際上存在爭議。

The traditional idea is that they provide a channel to divert current directly to the ground.

傳統的想法是，它們提供了一個將電流直接引向地面的通道。

While some people claim that they actually ward off lightning strikes by steadily transferring charge from the ground to the air,

雖然有些人聲稱，它們實際上是通過將電荷從地面穩定地轉移到空中，

lowering the cloud-to-ground voltage difference and reducing the probability of a strike.

降低雲層與地面的電壓差，減少雷擊概率，從而避免雷擊。

Either way, a lightning rod wouldn't keep you safe from Trevor's lightning.

無論如何，避雷針都無法讓你免受特雷弗閃電的傷害。

A copper cable a meter in diameter could, in theory, conduct the brief surge of current from the bolt without melting,

理論上，直徑一米的銅電纜可以傳導螺栓產生的短暫電流而不會熔化，

but unfortunately, whatever is at the other end of this cable probably wouldn't conduct electricity nearly as well,

但不幸的是，無論電纜的另一端是什麼，它的導電性可能都不會太好，

and an explosion would disintegrate everything nearby all the same.

而爆炸則會使附近的一切瓦解。

Collecting all the world's lightning into one place is obviously impractical, what about gathering all the lightning from just one area?

把全世界的閃電都收集到一個地方顯然是不現實的，那麼只收集一個地區的所有閃電呢？

No place on earth has constant lightning.

地球上沒有一個地方有持續不斷的閃電。

But there is an area in Venezuela which comes close near the southwestern edge of Lake Maracaibo.

但在委內瑞拉的馬拉開波湖西南邊緣附近，有一個地區與此接近。

There are two spots. One over the lake and one over the land to the west, where thunderstorms form almost every night.

有兩個地方，一個在湖面上，另一個在西面的陸地上，幾乎每天晚上都會形成雷暴。

These storms can generate a flash of lightning every two seconds, making Lake Maracaibo the lightning capital of the world.

這些風暴每兩秒鐘就會產生一道閃電，使馬拉開波湖成為世界閃電之都。

If you somehow managed to channel all the bolts from a single night of Catatumbo thunderstorms down through a single lightning rod,

如果你能設法將一夜卡塔通博雷暴的所有閃電通過一根避雷針引下來，

and used it to charge a massive capacitor,

並用它來為一個巨大的電容器充電，

it would store up enough power to run a game console and TV for roughly a century.

那麼它儲存的電量足以讓一臺遊戲機和電視機運行大約一個世紀。

If this happened, we'd probably need to revise the old saying to something like, "Lightning always strikes in the same place; that place is in Venezuela. You shouldn't stand there."

如果發生了這種情況，我們可能需要把這句老話改成：「閃電總是在同一個地方打，那個地方在委內瑞拉，你不應該站在那裡。」

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如果地球上所有的閃電都同時擊中同一個地方會怎樣？ (What if all the lightning on Earth struck the same place at once?)

ultimately

assume

phenomenon

constant