Incredible video of a lightning bolt disintegrating a tree outside a high school yesterday

This happened to a tree near my tent at Scout Camp a long time ago. Scared the S out of me. Splinters were all that was left and a campfire where the trunk had been the day before.

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(and @pesco )
my script blockers won’t even show it:

I found it on YouTube for us, though

it’s a wack news report and all slomo but still kinda cool.

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Dare one ask about “the dog problem”?

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I once saw one that had been split down the middle. The halves were still standing (for the moment, anyway)

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Hey, thanks for that. Pretty cool to see.

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That was pretty impressive act of physics in action that was captured. Also wondering what the tree did to anger nature to deserve that kind of retribution.

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The math problem that started the fire was likely exp( i * pi ) = -1

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I think the tree was Thor afterwards.

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The voiceover has a robotic cadence.

It was a pretty good calc 3 problem. There are 4 dogs chained up at at the 0,1 1,0 0,-1 and -1,0 points on the X/Y grid. Each dog runs equally fast. At the exact same moment the chain breaks on each and it chases the dog clockwise to it. How far does each dog run before they all come together?

I could do the problem back 25 years ago but now I’ve forgotten all that stuff and I can’t even remember enough of it to make my brain hurt thinking about it. It’s a good thing.

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What term did the teacher prefer?

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Thanks!

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There should be a Law, a la Murphy, that states whenever footage is recorded with a phone from a screen showing a security feed, at least one person will get all #whyweretheyfilming? Every time.

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For all I recall, she preferred students to factor the numerator and denominator, then group them into what reduced to a ratio of unity, reduce them, and then remove them. Clunky, but it got the principle across.

I wasn’t in her class; it would have been painful for both of us since by then I’d been doing that kind of algebra since third grade. She would have been right about the classroom discipline (I was a snotty brat) but of course I was right about the math. Best we never met.

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Tree undergoes rapid unscheduled disassembly.

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I met a guy who had a sailboat with a wooden mast that got hit by lightning. His remark was “I always wondered how tongue depressors were made.”

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I’ve always wondered why all trees hit by lightning don’t disintegrate like this. After all, the trunk is the shortest path to ground.

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I guess this answers the question of who would win a fight between Thor and Groot.

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This. Ranted about one on Reddit, got schooled hard. I’m very wary and look for the tell-tale signs now.

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Apparently also known as the mice problem.

https://mathworld.wolfram.com/MiceProblem.html

There are some nice animated plots.

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