Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!ukc!etive!hwcs!adrian
From: adrian@cs.hw.ac.uk (Adrian Hurt)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: Lightning rods. Was: Protecting com
Summary: Second hand observations
Message-ID: <1907@brahma.cs.hw.ac.uk>
Date: 25 Jul 88 09:02:05 GMT
References: <6179@aw.sei.cmu.edu> <44000015@pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk>
Organization: Computer Science, Heriot-Watt U., Scotland
Lines: 24

In article <44000015@pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk>, william@pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk writes:
> 
> I think it works like this:  We have a pretty enormous charge on the
> If this were not the case, then lightning conductors would not stick into
> the air, because this positively encourages a local discharge. A church,
> forinstance, would have a metal plate, as unpointed as possible, on its
> spire, so as to discourage discharge but still provide a path to ground.

Ever seen a church with a copper roof?

When I was on holiday in Germany, I noticed that the church tower clock had
stopped. I found out from the people I was staying with what had happened.

The church had recently had its roof repaired, and covered with copper. Within
a few days, there was a thunderstorm, and of course it got hit, clobbering the
clock. The same storm also wiped out the local power supply for a short while;
I was told someone opened their fridge door and nearly got fried. The locals
blamed the power failure on the new copper roof.

-- 
 "Keyboard? How quaint!" - M. Scott

 Adrian Hurt			     |	JANET:  adrian@uk.ac.hw.cs
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