Scientists control the path of lightning using lasers

was reading an ats thread about a lightning strike caught on camera which resembled a straight beam of light, and it reminded me of this article, seems this news never made it to ats according to search function, so here you go.

i wonder how long before we begin seeing this new field of research yielding fruits in the public sector.

Thousands of lightning bolts strike the Earth’s surface roughly every couple of seconds, but despite their ubiquity this phenomena is somewhat poorly understood. Lightning is also unpredictable. While humans have been placing lightning rods for centuries to increase the probability of striking in a certain fixed point, its path can not be controlled. That may be true in nature, but in the confinement of a lab of the INRS Énergie Matériaux Télécommunications research centre (Varennes, QC, Canada), scientists have defied this common knowledge and used lasers to coax lighting to follow a predefined path.

www.zmescience.com...



relevant threads
Lightning Photo Beam or Camera Fail?
Laser Used To Trigger Electrical Activity In Thunderstorm
Can A Laser Control Weather? Scientists Have Found A Way

You can also do that by running helium balloons up into the thundercloud on wire leaders.

a reply to: pryingopen3rdeye
I think this was on ATS some years ago
www.theregister.co.uk...

originally posted by: Bedlam
You can also do that by running helium balloons up into the thundercloud on wire leaders.

that sort of tech is named in the article i linked and explained as to how it differs, it can only encourage the end point of the lightning strike to a chance degree, while this tech is more about controlling the lightnings pathway in its entirety with reliability.

originally posted by: verschickter
a reply to: pryingopen3rdeye
I think this was on ATS some years ago
www.theregister.co.uk...

that old article reads more like a theorized weapon that turned into a failure

Ionatron stock fell off a cliff. The firm renamed itself, but nonetheless faced huge shareholder anger and earlier this month (2009/08) was forced to cough up $6.5m to settle a class-action lawsuit.

while the topic ive posted here is about actual successful laboratory experimentation, and recent to boot (June 23, 2015)

also, this method does not involve such a hefty energy cost since its merely lasers at use.

a reply to: pryingopen3rdeye

while the topic ive posted here is about actual successful laboratory experimentation, and recent to boot (June 23, 2015)

www.google.de...

They used the same principles. In actual successful laboratory experimantation back in the 1970s! It´s long known that you can channel potentials by superheating, thus ionizing a path of air. It´s called lightning. What they now proofed in their study is that you can vary the path when you combine certain types of beams. They overlayed two airy beams to get that S-shape. I could make an arc around a corner and you could too with "only" two high powered femtosecond lasers to punch a channel and two secondary nanosecond lasers keeping the channel open. You would have to time all 4 lasers to fire first the femto then the nano while giving enough potential between the electrodes near the beams. They would not have to touch the beam it would be enough if you bring them close to them, (100V/mm).

It´s not really groundbreaking or anything but it´s nice to hear they finally start make some achievments.