Ball Lightning

“I believe he was in charge of R&D of an anti-lightning material for use on high-tension lines. It turned out to be quite effective as a lightning deterrent. Putting it on power lines would have eliminated the need for a shield wire along the top. But the cost was too high, and in large-scale use it would have been more expensive than a traditional shield wire. So in the end it had no practical value, and all he got out of it were a few papers and second prize for technological achievement from the province. Nothing more than that.”

* * *

At last the project advanced to the stage I was waiting for: collecting physical data on lightning. We put out a large number of magnetic alloy recorders and lightning antennae, and each time a storm passed, we retrieved the devices that had been struck, taking care not to jostle them or bring them close to transmission lines or other magnetic sources that could affect their sensitivity by influencing their residual magnetism. Then we used a field strength meter (basically a compass whose needle angle indicated magnetic field strength and polarity) to read the data and a demagnetizer to wipe each device before returning them to their original positions to await the next strike.

The actual work at this stage was as tedious as before, but I was pretty interested. After all, it was my first opportunity to conduct quantitative measurements of lightning. Zhao Yu, that slacker, noticed this and began to slack off even more. It got to the point that when Zhang Bin was not around, Zhao Yu simply dumped his entire workload on me and went off to go fishing in a nearby stream.

As measured by the magnetic alloy recorders, the lightning current averaged around ten thousand amps and peaked at more than a hundred thousand, which meant we could calculate the voltage at one billion volts.

“What could you produce under those extreme physical conditions?” I asked Zhao Yu.

“Produce?” he said dismissively. “The power of an atomic blast or a high energy accelerator is far greater, yet it won’t produce the sort of thing you’re thinking of. Atmospheric physics is a mundane subject, yet you want to turn it mysterious. I’m the opposite: I’m used to taking sacred things and turning them ordinary.” Saying this, he gazed out into the dark green of the tropical rain forest that surrounded the weather station. “Hey, you go chasing after your mysterious fireball. I’m going to enjoy an ordinary life.”

His career as a master’s student was reaching an end, and he had no desire to continue on to a PhD.

* * *

Back at school, classes continued, and I took part in a few more of Zhang Bin’s projects outside of class and during the holidays. His methodical fastidiousness sometimes annoyed me, but apart from that he was easygoing enough, and I gained an immense amount of practical experience from him. But more importantly, his specialty was in line with my own quest.

For that reason, when it came time to graduate, I chose to test into the master’s program under him.

As I had anticipated, he firmly opposed my choice of ball lightning as a master’s thesis topic. In all other matters he was accommodating, including tolerating a lazy student like Zhao Yu, but in this there could be no accommodation.

“Young people should not get wrapped up in imaginary things,” he said.

“The existence of ball lightning is recognized by the scientific community. You think it’s imaginary?”

“Fine, I’ll repeat myself. What point is there to something that is not included in international standards or national regulations? When you were an undergraduate, you could study your own specialty using basic scientific techniques, but now that you are a graduate student, that’s no longer acceptable.”

“But Professor Zhang, atmospheric physics is pretty much a basic discipline now. It’s not just a tool for engineering; it has a duty to help us understand the world.”

“But in this country, the priority is to serve the cause of economic development.”

“Even so, if the anti-lightning measures at the Huangdao Oil Port had taken ball lightning into account, the 1989 catastrophe might have been avoided.”

“The source of the fire in Huangdao is just conjecture. Research on ball lightning itself is full of more conjecture. From now on, you’re going to avoid such harmful elements in your studies.”

There would be no further discussion of the subject. I was prepared to devote my entire life to that quest, so it was unimportant what I studied for the three years I was in graduate school. So I submitted to Zhang Bin’s suggestion and did a project on lightning defense computer systems.

* * *

Three years later, my graduate studies reached a smooth and uneventful conclusion.

To be fair, I learned quite a bit from Zhang Bin during those three years, and I benefited substantially from his technical rigor, proficient experimental skill set, and rich engineering experience. But, as I knew three years before, the core of what I required I was unable to find with him.