3231: Lightning
| Lightning |
 Title text: Maybe you should wear one too? I guess I'm taller than you, so as long as I have one we're fine. |
Explanation
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This is one of 65 incomplete explanations: This page was created by a GROUNDED BOT. Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page! |
An anti-static wrist strap is a device worn by people working with sensitive electronic devices. The strap is connected to a "ground", so that if there's any static charge built up it will discharge there rather than being transmitted to the device, which may otherwise damage it. Plenty of other objects are known to have such grounds to protect from electricity, such as certain types of charging cords.
Lightning is a release of static electricity that occurs when there's a large charge difference between a cloud and the Earth or between two clouds. In the comic, Cueball has once again confused how anti-static devices work -- rather than protecting a device from static in the person, he thinks it will protect the person from static in the lightning. In fact, wearing a strap that conducts electricity will make it more likely that he will be struck by lightning, and the strap is far too small to protect him from the electricity in the lightning strike.
He may think that the anti-static device works like a lightning rod, attracting the lighting and diverting it away from his body. The reason they work is because lightning takes the easiest path. This is corroborated by the title text, in which he thinks that Ponytail should be safe because he's taller than she is, and lightning tends to be attracted to the highest conductor in its vicinity (e.g., lightning rods that are above the roof of the building they're protecting). While this is true, it ignores the fact that he's made himself more likely to be struck, and potentially severely hurt or killed, by a lightning strike. (Obviously, there are better ways to be protected during a thunderstorm. (See the What If on lightning.)
Additionally, merely wearing such a device has no effect at all if it isn't connected to a handy grounding point, which is unlikely to be the case if you're actively moving around, such as with the two characters here who seem to be hiking during the storm. You'd possibly even need a couple of grounding-wires, always one secured to some suitable 'earthing point' even while the other is being unclipped from where you've just been and reclipped to slightly ahead of where you're going. Close examination of the 'protected' individual shows that there is a loop of some danling wire going from their wrist to their body. If that's all it does, then it's practically useless. There is some vague possibility, however, that the wire goes down the torso (ideally in an insulated manner, to avoid both electrical and thermal transference in the event of a lightning strike passing through it) and splits to connect down each leg and towards a grounding-plate/spike on the sole of each foot. This would technically create a dynamic 'always active' form of lightning-rod protection (ignoring the discrepancy between the height of the figures hand and the possibility that the higher crown of the head might be struck by lightning more in the first instance) where the act of walking will always create a protective connection to the ground - so long as Cueball does not attempt to run or (even momentarily) make any jumping movements. And it still relies upon an effective lightning-conductor connection that is rated sufficient to carry a strike's charge properly, without creating additional surface effects to the skin/clothing it passes down along. This is one of the rare situations in which wearing a tin foil hat might actually be of some benefit, assuming that it was connected to ground via a conductor, all sufficiently heavy-duty to carry the current.
Transcript
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This is one of 42 incomplete transcripts: Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page! |
- [Lightning overhead. Cueball and Ponytail are standing on a hill at night.]
- [In the sky, by the lightning:]
- BOOOOM
- Cueball: Don't worry, I'm wearing an anti-static wrist strap
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I don't know if this is important, but at least right now there is no period. Might change later. Majordesmosnerd (talk) 20:52, 10 April 2026 (UTC)
im not sure how to insert it into the current state of the explanation, but by being a lightning rod nearby but higher up, he is providing protection to ponytail, right? - Vaedez (talk) 21:04, 10 April 2026 (UTC)
- That does seem to be the premise, but I doubt that a few inches are sufficient for this, especially if they're several feet apart. But I had the same idea and already put it into the explanation. Barmar (talk) 21:11, 10 April 2026 (UTC)
Ironically, wearing a (properly grounded) anti-static strap would actually _increase_ the odds of being struck by lightning, turning you into a human lightning rod. The whole point of an anti-static strap is to dissipate any intrinsic potential difference between you and the ground, thus making you a (marginally) shorter path for the extreme potential difference between the clouds and the ground state. 50.47.191.231 21:10, 10 April 2026 (UTC) - and of course someone said that in the explanation in the time it took me to write the comment. :-p. 50.47.191.231 21:12, 10 April 2026 (UTC)
- Fortunately, Randall also presents an alternative solution. 216.7.114.74 23:13, 10 April 2026 (UTC)
Timing kinda sucks for this one: Colorado officials trying to identify woman struck by lightning. RandalSchwartz (talk) 22:54, 10 April 2026 (UTC)
Compare xkcd 795. X (talk) 00:59, 11 April 2026 (UTC)
THE EXPLANATION GIVEN ABOVE is WRONG-ish. ", Cueball has once again confused how anti-static devices work ". Actually, earthing does protect against lighting strikes -- the ground potential shapes around above the ground point. Cueball is less likely to be hit by lighting while wearing a correctly earthed grounding strap. Imagine that instead of "Cueball", what you see is the surface of the mountain curving up and around over Cueball. And yes, he is also more likely to be hit while he is the tallest point, lightning rods do get hit. Also, to work correctly, a lighting rod should have a pointed tip -- this makes it less likely to be hit because it works better at lifting the "surrounding ground" up to the point of the lighting rod. If it works perfectly, Cueball won't be the "high point" -- the surrounding air will be at the same potential has him.
> ""possibility, however, that the wire goes down the torso (ideally in an insulated manner, ...."" -- The lightning bolt has just jumped hundreds of feet through air from(/to) the sky. No wire insulation flexible enough to walk with will stop a lightning bolt that strong. --PRR (talk) 06:18, 11 April 2026 (UTC)
- It has long been a matter of contention whether a pointy tip (or even multiple spikes, branching out like crown of thorns), or (say) a ball-top, is the 'best' shape for the tip of a lightning conductor. It's very hard to practically test and compare different designs. But the balance of evidence seems to point (no pun intended!) towards a 'blunt-tipped-pencil'-like single extension (like a sharp end, but rounded off) for every 'summit' (though you can and should place multiple 'single spikes' for area-protection), in part because it never gets so thin as to have the flowing charge all trying to squeeze through it (at the moment where the atmosphere just is no longer enough of an insulator across the air-gap and the ionising 'feeler' can establish itself) which won't exactly help things if and when the lightning does strike.
- There's also a lot of other contentious/commonly-misunderstood details about how lightning-protection works,to which I originally elaborated. But it looked a bit too much TL;DR; even to me, so I just now cut it back, fortunately for y'all. ;) But the best way to prevent conductive damage between conductor and the structure (or person?) it's mounted upon is to have it standing off whatever it's attached to, secured periodically (enough to not flap about) but maintain an air-gap.
- Or, for things that really don't need (and maybe can't have) a conductor running down them, like rockets on pads, set up several free-standing 'lightning masts' surrounding the core structure, with a greater height sufficient to intercept chance lightning events that might have sought the structure of interest without these stand-offish towers being more ready to form the base of any initial upstroke. (Perhaps mount ionising lasers on them, to also make that 'bit of air' slightly more likely to be used, if you can't fly kites from them. Or even fire spool-tethered sounding rockets up when critical conditions are detected. Neither of which sound like good solutions when adjacent to a rocket-pad, of course. :p ). 82.132.239.232 13:23, 11 April 2026 (UTC)
This might be a stretch but the art reminds me a lot of the art for the Magic card Lightning Bolt, might be an intentional reference. [1] -magic nerd 38.85.177.78 10:47, 11 April 2026 (UTC)
Does anyone know what the other comic is where Randall shows lightning? It's one where Cueball keeps walking in a storm, because he thinks the amount of people that die each year from lightning strikes is so small he can't possibly get struck-Despite him being all reckless in a storm by keeping going, thus making him a big target. Anyone know which one it is? GSLikesCats307 (talk) 15:29, 11 April 2026 Add comment
