COMMENTS on THUNDERBALL PROJECT

INTERNATIONAL COMMENTS on THUNDERBALL PROJECT

A Microscopic Study on Physical Processes of Precipitations

in a Thunder-Cloud

their Nucleation, Fragmentation and Electrification,

by Roger J. CHENG, Atmospheric Sciences Research Center, SUNY-ALBANY

1. LONDON TIMES, London, England, Jan. 4, 1971-Science Report-WEATHER, “How Lightning May be Produced,”
.... .the observation of this separation process may therefore be the prime factor in the generation of thunderstorm electricity....”
2. ANN ARBOR NEWS, Jan. 31, 1971-The Science Beat, “Causes Lightning?”
. . .A. D. Moore, University of Michigan, Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering, and one of the world’s foremost authorities on electrostatics, says what could be the big ‘breakthrough’ in knowledge of what causes electrical discharges during thunder storms..... .the best explanation yet of the electrical discharges we hear as thunder and see as lightning...”
3. NEW SCIENTIST, London, England, Vol. 734, Jan. 1971. “
. . .recent observation by Roger Cheng of the University of New York reveals a fascinating new microscopic process which almost certainly has an important bearing on how thunderclouds become charged to their high voltages....”
4. SUMMARY REPORT WEATHER MODIFICATION, Fiscal Year 1972,
by U.S. Dept. of Commerce, National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration
from chapter Cloud Electricity and Lightning Modification, “.....investigators from the State University of New York at Albany (Cheng, 1970) have been studying the freezing of super cooled water drops. suggestion that this mechanism might be important in the generation of thunderstorm electricity....”
5. Dr. J. V. Iribame, University of Toronto, Canada,
..... I believe that separation of liquid droplets, rather than ice splinters, may be a basic process causing electrification during riming of super cooled droplet....”
6. Dr. Herbert A. Phol, University of Cambridge, England,
.... .it opens up several new pathways. .1 am citing your work in my chapter in A.D. Moore’s forthcoming book on Electrostatics....”
7. Dr. Senichi Masuda, Chairman, Dept. of Electrical Engineering, University of Tokyo, Japan,
.... .1 would like to use the photomicrograph related to your article in SCIENCE, ..'Water Drop Freezing: Ejection of Microdroplets' in my book, “MODERN APPLIED ELECTROSTATICS”.
8. Dr. Leonard B. Loeb, Professor of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, “
... it could well be that this is one of the main sources of thunderstorm electrification— especially since it has been shown that B.J. Mason’s splintering theory has proven inadequate.., you have made a most interesting discovery.
9. Dr. C. L. Andrews, Professor of Physics, SUNYA,
..... it is the most beautiful combination of mechanics, thermodynamics, electricity and magnetism and optics... you have initiated a field worthy of a few lifetimes of study...
10. Britanica Yearbook of Science and the Future, 1973, BRITANICA ENCYCLOPEDIA,
from Review of Atmospheric Science, by Dr. L. J. Battan, Professor of Atmospheric Science,
Director of the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, University of Arizona,
.... .this separation mechanism could possibly generate lightning in storm clouds...
11. The World Book Science Annual 1974, SCIENCE YEAR from Science Report “The New Rainmaker”
by Dr. C. L. Hosler, Dean, College of Earth & Mineral Sciences, Penn State University, “
...tiny particles of ice break off..., and scattering electrically charged micro-droplets..., such studies help explain rapid changes in the cloud...”
12. Dr. Choji Magono, Professor, Geophysical Sciences, Hokkaido University, Japan,
Chairman: Section of Ice and Snow Crystals, International Conference on Cloud Physics, 1968 in his keynote paper at the conference, .... .Cheng (1967) observed many clumped ice crystals and considered that the clumping was caused by Coulomb force. The author also observed clumped ice crystals...and found that the clumping seemed to occur under a microscope by Coulomb force...”
13. From “Aggregation Phenomena of Ice Crystals,” Journal of the Meteorological Society of Japan,
Vol. 50, No. 5, October, 1972, “......it is noted.. .that the ice crystals observed were in a state of growth in which the charge separation could occur within an ice crystal, as pointed out by Cheng (1967).”