Translated material
Daily salutes in honor of Winkler
In the new popular science project Laba.media, podcasts are published on the history of science “Scientific and Spiritic session“ Do not believe the Lord Kelvin ”. In this cycle, scientific journalist Olga Orlova offers the current scientist to “talk” with the dead predecessors, inform them of important news, and ask questions of interest. In this release of the scientific and session of the cand. physical. sciences, deputy. Director MIEM NIU HSE Alexander Kostinsky “reviving” John Winkler.
- Sasha, with whom would you like to talk from the dead predecessors?
“I would very much like to talk with a person who made an outstanding discovery recently and I did not have time to meet, is John Randolf Winkler.”
Historical certificate
John Randolf Winckler is an American experimenter physicist who opened sprouts. Born in 1916 in New Jersey, and died in 2001 in Minnesota.
- How is he interesting to you?
- The story and fate of Winkler shows how modern science works. This is a real scientific feat, which suggests that an outstanding discovery can be done at any age, having a Hirsch 11 index and general citation 172.
“ But modern science is betting on the young.”
- Yes, it is true, but Winkler was 73 years old, when he opened a phenomenon that was predicted 65 years before him and forgotten. In the history of science of the 20th century, I do not know another case when the great prediction of the Nobel laureate - and it was Charles Thomson Wilson - was forgotten so long. In the XX and even more so in the 21st century, science develops very dynamically. And such gaps that close so slowly are a rarity.
- What kind of prediction of Wilson are we talking about?
- We are talking about the effect that generates the most ordinary lightning. We think that if we see a zipper many times in our life, then we understand everything about it. And this is not at all like that. The story was like that. In July 1989, John Winkler was already a NASA pensioner, a specialist in auroral phenomena (northern and southern shines). And then one day he worked in his garden in Minnesota ... And I must say that the place where he lived was at sufficient height, so he could look at the thunderstorms that were in the valley below and sometimes see what was happening above the thundercloud. There are lightning blows. He raises his head and sees that strange volumetric flashes occur high above the cloud and they rise up. He, as a deep specialist in auroral phenomena, instantly understands that this is not the northern lights and not lightning. He guesses that he sees some gigantic, unwritten discharges over lightning. He runs to the library and tries to figure it out, but finds nothing.
- It turns out that no one saw such outbreaks before, but he saw?
- We saw before, of course, but they did not understand what they saw, could not distinguish from the northern lights ... Since the season of rains and thunderstorms continues in the Minnesot, he goes to the dean of the faculty of physics and astronomy of the local university in Minnesota and tries to convince him that he saw an amazing phenomenon that lasts several milliseconds and must be recorded on a high -speed chamber. Therefore, it is necessary to restore the written camera he has. Then in 1989 to fix this high -speed camera and make a body kit, the launch system, cost 7 thousand dollars. And he persuades the dean to give him this money. He quickly repairs this camera and sits in ambush, is waiting for another thunderstorm, and he is lucky. He records these outbreaks. When he comes to the university, where he was allowed to use the technique, shows a film and finds these outbreaks, then in an approximate distance to a thunderstorm evaluates the distance to these outbursts and their height. And then he understands that he made a discovery. He removed several outbreaks throughout July, while there were powerful thunderstorms and hurricane Hugo. And then he published the results in the leading geophysical journal - Geophysical Research letters (hereinafter - GRL), then in Science itself.
Winkler's main article
Franz RC, Nemzek RJ, WinCkler JR Television Image of a Large Upwardelectrical DischaRge ABOVE A Thunderstorm System // Science, 1990, DOI: 10.1126/science.249.4964.48
- Praise of Science magazine, if the leading scientific magazine takes an article by a pensioner from Minnesota ...
-Well, firstly, this is after publications in the GRL . The fact is that before that he had already had well -deserved publications on auroral phenomena. He was not a man from the street. Publications caused shock, surprise and bewilderment of colleagues who did not understand how such unverified articles could be published. There were several letters from serious scientists who are engaged in atmospheric electricity on the topic “How it could be published in Science when there is only one job. Maybe this is an artifact of the camera. ” And then the Winkler makes an ingenious administrative move - he goes to the NASA leadership with his articles and writes the “cart” that “ in the area where the rockets take off, I discovered huge electric discharges, the nature of which is unknown. They can damage missiles, planes, long -term communications, because it is definitely plasma, and it is dangerous . ” The officially registered "cart" begins to live its own life. Big bosses and scientists are forced to gather, some of whom criticized Winkler. Large bosses decide that the danger cannot be ignored and the results of the Winkler's results are necessary. And three years later, a large expedition is gathering near the Fort Collins (Colorado), a lot of cameras are arranged, a lot of money is spent, about 15 more times more than Winkler spent. And in one evening it was possible to remove more than 240 outbreaks!
The first sprite 
Color shooting (plane)
- And these were the same outbreaks that Winkler photographed?
- Yes, this phenomenon received a name - “sprops”, because physicists love all sorts of playful names. They called it because the sprite is a cheerful character of the Shakespearean comedy, light, like a spirit. These outbreaks appear as "lightning spirits."
- And what did Winkler call this phenomenon?
- He did not give him a name. He was already an elderly man and did not think about PR at all. Then there were other publications about sprites in 1993, 1994.
“ But how did he understand that this is a new type of category?”
- Because he was a good professional in his business, he knew absolutely everything about the northern lights. The fact is that the northern lights are easy to recognize, it usually lasts a long time - minutes and hours. But not always. There are short outbreaks, there are pulsating, rarely arising northern lights. Moreover, they are in low latitudes. After all, Minnesota is far from the North Pole, but occasionally the northern lights are there. For example, according to legend, when Julius Caesar was killed, the northern lights reached Italy. So, Winkler knew the properties of all the northern lights so well, he understood their shape, color, which he immediately determined: he deals with another phenomenon. Those scientists who saw such phenomena before Winkler wrote them to polar radiance. Moreover, NASA launched satellites who removed the phenomenon over the clouds for thirty years from space. When these old records were raised from the archives, they found these sprits.
- That is, in fact, these categories were recorded, not understanding that they have a different physical nature? But why?!
- This is a common thing in science. We see we do not with our eyes - we see brains. Until you understand what, in principle, you should see, you will not see anything. People saw sprites, but did not pay attention to them. When you look at a huge amount of film, you must know what to look. For example, notes from space: lightning flashes, huge regions of clouds are lit, lights burn on the ground and against their background it is necessary to find not such bright flashes, and even understand that this is not glare on the optics of the chambers, etc. Therefore, people are usually looking for what they are able to realize and understand. You need to be ready for the opening in advance, often not knowing about it. Therefore, in my opinion, there are no absolutely random discoveries.
- And after the large expedition registered 240 outbreaks in one evening in Colorado, did the Winkler triumph come?
- Then a sad story from the field begins to be more likely to scientific sociology and psychology. I looked at the publications about sprites 1995, 1997, 2001, 2003. I note that Winkler died in 2001. So, there are few links on his publication, but in some works there simply is not. Although they consulted with him before the experiments, he was not officially included in any large project. His business was continued by people who gave the names to the names. But they did not take it to co -authors, leaving it on the sidelines.
“ But Wilson predicted the appearance of springs.” Did they refer to Wilson?
- Yes, sure. Referring to Wilson, some colleagues considered it possible not to refer to Winkler. The logic was this: “Why did you open there, boy? After all, everything has long been predicted! " Thomas Wilson's work was published in 1924 as part of the discussion on the ionization of the atmosphere in Procededings of the Physical Society of London , where he predicted this phenomenon 1 . A few more works were found, which mentioned incomprehensible outbreaks above the clouds.
- That is, the fact that they found this prediction made it possible to throw the Winkler out of this chain?
- He was not thrown away, it was not a conspiracy against Winkler, he simply did not focus on him. Moreover, immediately after this, a whole new physics of discharges in the middle atmosphere began to unfold. New discoveries were made. The fact is that after sprites these phenomena are called Transient Luminous Events, that is, transitional light phenomena. New phenomena were opened, Elves (Emission of Light and Very Low Frequency Perturbations Due to Electromagnetic Pulse Sources) were opened. In Russian-elves, huge diverging circles at an altitude above the ground about 100 km. A little later, jets were open, then giant jets, which rose from the upper edge of the cloud. If you represent a rude cloud, it has two large charges - positive at the top, negative at the bottom - and a small positive below the negative. Lightning, which beat in the ground, are mainly negative, and at the same time a large negative charge is transferred to the ground. If you have a dipole charge (one plus, the other minus), then the electric field falls inversely in proportion to the cube of the distance. And the pressure drops exponentially, that is, much faster, like geometric progression. If, for example, lightning discharged part of one of the cloud charges, then you have another charge remains almost unchanged, and the field begins to fall quadratically, and its absolute magnitude at a height increases sharply. Thus, when powerful zipper beats into the ground, your cloud, visible in the middle atmosphere, increases sharply, and, accordingly, the electric field increases - so that the threshold of breakdown at this height, and you have an electric discharge. These are sprites.
Ht Su et al. (Nature, Vol 423, 26 June 2003)
- So springs are born?
- Yes, we need an electric field of 30 sq/cm on the surface of the earth for breakdown. And high above the clouds can be enough only a few volts per centimeter, because the density of the molecules is very small and the electron manages to accelerate to ionize the atoms. Therefore, we have conditions for ordinary discharge. As in the pipes of gas discharge lamps that burn over us in the room now, the voltage in the network is 220 V, and not 30 square meters. Why are they burning? Because inside the bulbs are very low pressure. In fact, there is what is happening in the meshosphere in ordinary gas discharge lights, only the mesosphere is “refined” not by argon and mercury, but by air of low pressure. With low pressure, there is no high voltage.
- Did Wilson describe the physical nature of springs like this?
- Yes, he approximately predicted the physical nature of these discharges and predicted that they could arise when lightning is discharged. But Winkler, like all the scientists modern for him, did not know about Wilson’s work, so he had no goal to confirm his prediction.
“ Well, what would you like to tell Winkler?” After all, he died not so long ago, in 2001. Do we have something to tell him after death? What are good news for him?
- The fact is that the study of transients - transition plasma phenomena in the atmosphere - was at the peak when he died. He died an elderly man, he was 85 years old. But a year after his death, physicists Viktor Pasko and Umran Inan open giant jets ...
Article Pasko - Inana
PASKO VP, Stanley Ma, Mathews JD, Inan Us & Wood TG Electrical DischaRge from a ThunderCloud Top To the Lower Ionosphere // Nature 416–154 (2002)
It turned out that there are discharges starting from the top of the cloud at an altitude of 15–20 km and continuously spreading up to the lower ionosphere. These are not sprites, not Wilson’s mechanism, this is a new type of discharge during a thunderstorm. Winkler would be amazed that such categories exist. The article was published in Nature , and everyone realized that this was a new wonderful discovery.
Then Winkler would be interested to know how compact intraellar units were open and confirmed, and we still do not know what it is. We know that there is a fantastic power of radio emission inside the cloud, which is an order of magnitude greater than radiation at these frequencies of an ordinary thunderstorm cloud. Judging by radiation, the categories, but what is their nature, we do not have a clear idea, only hypothesis. Most of all, he would be delighted that a thin structure of sprites was opened. He photographed large luminous flashes. And the graduate student of Inan-Lisa Hercin, a young-apirist girl, she was not yet 20 years old,-directed a simple telescope of Dobson’s diameter with a diameter of 400 mm per sprouts, fixing the image with a high-speed camera. And she saw a thin structure of sprouts. It turned out that these are gigantic streamers, the very ones that arise when the wires of high -voltage lines are buzzing, small, thin hissing blue needles. It turned out that in the upper atmosphere at low pressure, these needles turn into giant pillars with a diameter of 10-100 m. The entire sprite below consists of giant streamers, and at the top it is more or less homogeneous. This is a direct continuation of Winkler's work. He also very well understood how the northern lights develop in electric and magnetic fields, which are generated by solar protons and electrons. Therefore, such news would be very important to him, because it is a continuation of his work.
“ What would you like to ask Winkler?”
- I am very sorry that during my lifetime I did not talk to him. I knew about the opening of sprites, read the theoretical work of my colleagues, for example, Mikhail Schneider, but I did not know the fate of this person. I would like to ask him how he guessed and realized that these were not auroral phenomena. How, on what basis he excluded all possible other options. Still, ask for 7 thousand dollars, put on the end of your scientific reputation, to convince the dean you need to have courage. He is a very persistent person. On the one hand, he acted unfairly in relation to him, but in fact he is a lucky one! Did many were lucky to open completely new phenomena over their heads? In honor of Winkler, salutes soar every second - this springs give him his due. If there was such an opportunity, then I would like to arrange a meeting for three - I would also invite Charles Thomson Wilson. He from 1924, and this one from 1989. I can imagine how Wilson would react when I learn that I made an opening in a geophysics on the tip of the pen. They would have something to talk about.
- And how often does this happen in geophysics?
- No, in geophysics this is very rare. Oddly enough, the physics around us, to which we can sometimes reach a finger, is sometimes more difficult than the physics of phenomena that occur through the microseconds after the birth of the Universe. Therefore, in geophysics, it happens more often, as in the case of Winkler, which at first record something that is amazing people, and then we find that someone, perhaps, predicted this phenomenon. There are areas of science where the theory without an experiment is just applied mathematics based on physics. And most scientists in these areas read such theoretical work with one eye, without delving. Such an area is a physics of lightning, physics of high -altitude atmospheric discharges. And in this sense, it may, for example, laboratory quantum physics, for all its madness and beauty, is easier. Moreover, here we are talking now, and a hundred times of us thunder, ordinary linear lightning. And we do not have a universally recognized qualitative theory of the origin of lightning in the clouds.
- Then what modern project would Winkler be good to call?
- To engage in the theory of the origin of lightning. A person who knew the physics of plasma of the upper atmosphere so well, I am sure that it would be something to tell us.
-It was the scientific and session “Do not believe Lord Kelvin” on Laba.media. It was held by Olga Orlova and Alexander Kostinsky. They tried to talk with experimental physicist John Winkler.
Podcast:
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