On Jan 24, 5:02*pm, Erik wrote:
In article ,

wrote:
A lot of older houses had lightning rods on their roofs. *Particularly
farm houses. *They would have a thick braided cable that went to ground
rods. *Many of them had a glass ball in the center of the copper rod.

I'm wondering of they really did any good. *Sure, you want to ground a
strike, but on some ways, it would seem to me that they also could
attract lightning. *Anything that is a high point in an area attracts
it, such as large trees. *Of course metal attracts, so putting a metal
rod on a roof is an attractant. *In a direct strike, I doubt they would
do anything, in fact they might get hot enough to start a fire. *But a
discharge nearby could be sent to ground via the lightning rods.

One other thing, was there any usefulness to the glass balls in the
middle, or were they strictly decorations?

Years ago I recall watching a lightning study documentary... and IIRC,
they suggested that arrays of smaller sharp devices like aircraft static
discharge wicks might be superior.

Not that they dealt with strikes well, but were efficient at quickly
bleeding off local atmospheric electric charges, thus preventing a local
strike in the first place.

Erik

I think the idea that lightning rods bleed off atmospheric
charges has been disproven. Conceptually it doesn't make
sense to me. Consider two huge metal plates, say a city
block size in area, seperated by 2000 ft of air.. You put some
metal points about a foot higher on two spots on the
bottom plate. Now you start applying a charge to the
two plates. Are those two points going to do anything
to lessen the charge in any material way? Air is a pretty
good insulator, until it becomes ionized. And once that
occurs, we know what's going to happen.....