Q. What if you were changing the light atthe top of a radio tower, and lightning struck? Or what if you were doing abackflip? Or standing in a graphite field? Or looking straight up at the bolt?

Q．如果你在广播信号塔上更换灯泡时被雷击了会怎么样？如果你在做后空翻的时候被击中了呢？或者站在一片石墨地上呢？又或者抬头盯着闪电看呢？

Q. What would happen if lightning struck abullet in midair?

Q．闪电击中飞行途中的子弹会发生什么？

A. THE BULLET WON'T AFFECT the path thelightning takes. You'd have to somehow time the shot so the bullet was in themiddle of the bolt when the return stroke happened.

A．子弹不会影响闪电经过的路径。你必须精确地把握好时机，这样才能让子弹在闪电回击的那一刻恰好位于闪电路径之中。

The core of a lightning bolt is a fewcentimeters in diameter. A bullet fired from an AK-47 is about 26 mm long andmoves at about 700 millimeters every millisecond.

闪电路径的核心部分直径大约为几厘米，而AK-47步枪使用的子弹长度约为26毫米，每毫秒能够前进约700毫米。

The bullet has a copper coating over a leadcore. Copper is a fantastically good conductor of electricity, and much of the20,000 amps could easily take a shortcut through the bullet.

子弹的铅质核心外面包了一层铜质外壳。铜是电的优良导体，2万安培电流中的大部分都将轻易地流过子弹走捷径。

Surprisingly, the bullet would handle itpretty well. If it were sitting still, the current would quickly heat and meltthe metal. But since it would be moving along so quickly, it would exit thechannel before it could be warmed by more than a few degrees. It would continueon to its target relatively unaffected. There would be some curiouselectromagnetic forces created by the magnetic field around the bolt and thecurrent flow through the bullet, but none of the ones I examined would changethe overall picture very much.

令人惊讶的是，闪电并不会对子弹造成什么伤害。如果子弹静止不动，那么通过的电流将会很快加热并熔化子弹上的金属材料。但由于子弹的飞行速度太快，它在离开闪电通道的时候自身仅被加热了几摄氏度，子弹会几乎不受任何影响地继续飞向目标。闪电周围的磁场和流过子弹的电流会产生一些有意思的电磁力，但所有我检验过的电磁力中没有一个会显著影响最后的结果。

1 Or a real one, for that matter.

1或者滚一个真的球……

2 Paleontologists estimate he stood nearly 5meters tall at the shoulder.

古生物学家估计他直立时肩膀处有将近5米高。

3 While it's called a “return stroke,”charge is still flowing downward. However, the discharge appears to propagateupward. This effect is similar to how when a traffic light turns green, thecars in front start moving, then the cars in back, so the movement appears tospread backward.

虽然这个过程又被称为回击，但电荷是向下流动的，然而放电看上去是向上传播的。这有点像当交通信号灯从红灯变为绿灯时，前面的汽车开始移动，然后才是后面的汽车，看上去汽车运动是向后传播的。

4 For safety reasons, do not use a realsphere.

出于安全原因，不要用真的球。

Q. Would it be possible to stop a volcanoeruption by placing a bomb (thermobaric or nuclear) underneath the surface?

Q．在火山地面以下的地方安置温压弹或者核弹，能够阻止火山爆发吗？

-Aaron Smith

——阿龙•史密斯