What if all the lightning on Earth struck the same place at once?

If all the lightning that occurs worldwide on any given day all struck the same place at once, what would happen to that place?

Henry Reich is the creator of MinutePhysics and executive producer of MinuteEarth and MinuteFood and founder of Neptune Studios (the parent company for all three youtube channels).

Credits
Narrated by and based on "What If?" by Randall Munroe
Written & Directed by Henry Reich
Illustration and Video Editing by Lizah van der Aart
Illustration and Animation by Ever Salazar
Music & Sound Effects by Know Art Studios

What If? The Video Series is the official adaptation of the What If? books by Randall Munroe and is produced by Neptune Studios LLC.

©2024 xkcd, inc.

[edgeman]

Good job guys, we didn't wipe out humanity this time!

[quailron]

Trevor’s Lightning sounds like a vicious D&D spell.

[ouroboratika]

"It would leave a crater the size of the entire [basketball] court"
Oh that's not too bad.
"The light and heat from the bolt would spontaneously ignite surfaces for miles around. The shockwave would flatten trees and demolish buildings."
Oh, that's pretty bad.

[raumnika]

As someone who lives in Lake Maracaibo, I can confirm: You shouldn't stand here

[NrdCool]

I like how we're calling it Trevor's lightning. Like this is his fault. Blame him for your lightning atomic bomb.

[mattwinward]

My takeaway from this video is two fold:
1. The US uses as much power as two hiroshima bombs every 5 minutes (which is insane).
2. There _definitely_ is a mad scientist who lives in the middle of that lake in Venezuela.

[terry_the_terrible]

Zeus would be like:
"Fuck this place in particular"

[zombiedemon]

0:26 If lightning never strikes the same place twice, there should eventually be a future where every place that could be struck already has been so all lightning strikes in general would become a thing of the past.

[CygnusLaboratorys]

Congrats Trevor, you now have your name on "Trevor's Lightning" a hypothetical Super Lightning Strike with the power of 2 Nukes

[ZelphTheWebmancer]

I hate the "lightning never strikes twice" saying because I seen people defend it in the most wild ways. I remember a high school teacher saying something like "Of course it is true, because the left over charge stops a lightning from striking there again for a while" and I was (in my mind) like "That is not what the saying means and this is a stretch"

[rocbolt]

The flag of Zulia state, where lake Maracaibo is, has a bolt of lightning on it. It’s awesome 10/10 flag ⚡️

[jasonfisher]

"You would think people who believed it would be gradually filtered out."

This phrase caught me laughing out loud for a couple of minutes!

[noodleguy]

some guy is either gonna get super speed or get a free cremation

[NotDrDre]

Note to people in tornado alley: quit putting out tornado food

[bartoscar]

I saw the lightning over Lake Maracaibo from an airplane (I was flying to Bolivia) and it was absolutely mind-blowing

[melvinshaw]

So you're saying that if I moved to Venezuela, connected a lightning rod to a capacitor, and hooked my TV to it, I could play Ocarina of Time for almost a full century? An excellent Song of Storms moment

[driedpotatoes]

As somebody from Orlando, I’m both shook and disappointed in myself for blindly believing it was the lighting capital of the world.

[pedroscoponi]

How did I never hear about "The thunderplains from FF10 in real life"!? What the hell!? That's _awesome._

[lundylow]

I greatly anticipate the hair dryer with unlimited power. That's one of my favorites.

[MrRelish]

One very important thing that you missed: The lighting rods would be attracted to one another, and form a single, very thin, plasma channel in which temperature and densities would reach nuclear fusion conditions. However, it would be highly unstable and would break off, still generating a lot of nuclear fusion reactions through those instabilities and resulting in a significant nuclear yield.