Why are lightning bolts jagged instead of being strait?
87627
lighting bolts are very much jagged. Actually its composed of a number of straight lines. \n\nLighting is a spark between two clouds/ a cloud and the gound.This has to go through air (insulator). The conductivities of air are dissimilar at differnet places. So, the lightning goes through different layers of air through different paths. The discharge will take place between two points which has highest charge density. These points in air are not present in a staight line. Thus following these points lightning becomes jagged.
1102552
When you see the flash, count 1,001 - 1,002 - 1,003 ... until you hear the thunder and the nearest portion of the bolt will be one mile away for every five seconds.  Thunder rumbles because not all parts of the bolt are the same distance from you and the lightning zig zags across the sky.  The sound is caused by the sudden expansion of the air due to heat and the bolt discharges along its entire length almost instantly.  Any portion of the bolt that is on a path nearly perpendicular to your line of site (like staring at a wall straight on) will sound like a sharp crack with all the segment's sound arriving together as opposed to portions of the bolt traveling along your line of sight where the sound will arrive from the nearest point before the farthest point.  Portions of the bolt at angles between the extremes will sound different (crack or whimper) accordingly.  Of course the nearest portion of the bolt will sound louder than distant portions due to the inverse square law.  As a result, someone several miles from you will hear the same thunder but it will rumble quite differently for them.  You will have your own private show.
969310
They're simultaneous.  Thunder is the noise made by the lightning.  You may experience the two at different times (always thunder second) because light waves and sound waves travel at different speeds.  They actually occur at the same time, your perception of them causes the distinction.
999822
Thunder is just noise.  The electrical charge from the lightning is what does the damage.
260605
The lightning bolt, which produces the thunder, can be over a mile long.  Sound only travels a mile every 5 seconds or so.  Thus, the thunder produced by different parts of the bolt can reach your ear at noticeably different times. We perceive this difference as drawn out, or rolling, thunder.
417664
A number of reasons.\nMostly you are trasferring energy and the lowest form of energy is heat.\nSome of the energy will be used up in deforming the copper.\nSome will be a shock wave travelling down the copper and back and making the hammer "recoil." \nHeat is caused by friction and also a certain amount is caused by a sudden compression of the material. PV=NRT.
133072
When lighning strikes, is causing the surrounding air to get extreamly hot and expand very quickly, causing thunder.\n\nSince you can see the efffects of lighning, you can tell pretty much instantly when a bold a lightning struck, it takes virtually no time for the light to travel to you.\nOn the other hand, the sound of the thunder travels at the speed of sound (MUCH slower than light), so it can take a significant amount of time for you to "hear" the effects of the lighning.\n\nSince the lighning bolt and the thunk clap pretty much occur at the same time, using the difference in the amount of time for you to detect them can tell you how far away they occured (since we know the approx. seed of sound is ~5 miles / sec).\nFor every 1 second that goes by between seeing the lighning and hearing the thunder, you are 5 miles away from there it occured.
439061
Lightning is electricity. When the clouds build up too much electrons and the voltage between the cloud and the ground is great enough to cause air to break down and conduct, you get lighting. Its like a spark.
1138086
Lightning are actually sparks produced when water molecules in the clouds rub against each other, producing friction and therefore heat.  This creates positive and negative charges and they always seek to attract each other.  (like a magnet)\n\nThus, lightning can acutally shoot anywhere it wants to, as long as there is a negative in one place and a positive charge in the other.  Lightning also tends to hit the closest object within range.  Contrast to popular belief, metallic objects do not attract lightning.  They just conduct the electricity better than other insulators, and of course, the shock will be greater.
207734
no, its a myth.  lightning is attracted to tall objects and metal objects (like lightning rods) so these get hit more often.
344047
The cause of lightning is still somewhat mysterious.  The leading theories state that an interaction between updrafts, rain droplets, and ice crystals in a thunderstorm separates positive from negative charges, such that positive charges concentrate at the top of the cloud, and negative charges at the bottom.  This negative charge in the cloud base induces a positive charge in the ground; lightning is an attempt to equalize this charge.\n\nThunder is basically a kind of explosion of air; it's what happens when the air the lightning passes through is violently heated and expands.  The reason thunder takes several seconds is because we hear thunder produced all along the lightning channel, which may be some miles long.
96759
Some of these answers are good ones.  Clouds are charged, scientists can't agree why.  The tops of clouds are positively charged, the bottoms are negatively charged.  The negative charge at the bottom of the cloud repels negative ions in the earth's surface, which gives it a positive charge.  There are things called leaders and step leaders that seek out a path to relieve the difference in electrical potential.  As they reach out, then 'streamers' are generated on the opposing surface, like the ground, in response to the growing electrical field.  When these two meet this prepares the way for a lightning strike.  Usually this happens from cloud-to-ground, but it can also happen ground-to-cloud.\n\nOne of the best descriptions of how lightning strikes work can be found at http://science.howstuffworks.com/lightning5.htm
630169
I believe its because the structure of their leg bones is an example of the ball & socket joint. Therefore it allows them to move the joint on the socket in one direction like sideways. Sorry if it's hard to understand or imagine.
622228
The initial noise comes from the superheated air surrounding a bolt of lightning moving at high speeds, creating a fairly high pitched CRACK.  The "rolling" thunder sound is caused by that superheated air "pushing" (via air pressure in case you were wondering) the air around it.  Kinda cool to think that all we are hearing is friction of air molecules at different speeds, huh?
375503
Space.  No kidding.  Sprites and Elves show us that the energy is coming from way up in the ionosphere, which is the outer boundary of the Earth's electric field.  Unfortunately, all the scientists we have nowadays are stupid or the satellites have been hijacked by someone who doesn't want us to know what causes lightning. Either way, it's not official yet.  But with all the crazy weather we've been getting nowadays and with all the awesome thunderstorms that cause hundreds of thousands of cloud to ground strikes, it shouldn't be too long before somebody realizes all this energy has to be coming from somewhere other than the clouds themselves.
1083933
That kind of lightning are usually called  cloud to clud lightning, and  occurs  at very high altitudes between clouds at different altitudes (1,000 ft,).  there's no thunder because  the charges are  not  making ground like when they touch  earth.
679142
Most large buildings have lightning rods.\n\nAdditionally the current travels mostly along metal conduits... so you won't see the scarring as much on the outside.\n\nIndeed, strikes can scorch buildings to the point of starting it on fire.  But it isn't too common for the same reason tornadoes don't commonly hit big cities... if you think about all the land in the US/your state, there isn't a lot of it actually covered by a house itself.\n\nAnd most strikes do hit taller objects like radio towers, tall buildings (which have lightning rods), and trees.\n\n\nScorching is due to resistance to the current.  Wood, people, basically anything that doesn't conduct will show burns and scorching.\nMetal conducts.  Consider power lines.  They have a lot of power going through them... but they don't scorch or start on fire.\nSo a lightning strike could hit your house, move into the metal frame of the house down into the ground... and your house might not show much if any scorching.  Of course there'd still probably be subtle hints like singed electrical outlets and possibly a hole in the roof where the lightning entered the building.\n\nHope I helped,\nwish you well and God's blessings,\nShane