All About Lightning

This is an easy, introductory book on the subject. There's a lot of pseudoscience and misunderstanding about lightning out there, and this is a great overview of the reality. I've seen a number of people in the communications industry (with steel radio towers hundreds of feet in the air) reference Martin Uman as one of the authorities on lightning and lightning protection, and it appears he has dedicated most of his life to the study.This is, as another reviewer noted, a fairly introductory book, but as an introduction it's excellent. Despite having extensive citations, it's written in an engaging style with each chapter opening with a common question about lightning and then discussing. I enjoyed reading it.One note -- take note of the fact that this was last updated in 1987. This book is more than 30 years old, and the 1987 version was a reprint with some updates of the original from 1971. There are a few oddities as a result, like a table of lightning deaths in the US between 1950 and 1969, which feels slightly irrelevant in 2019. That said, I don't have reason to believe any of the information in the book has been superseded by new knowledge about lightning, so I wouldn't take a star away from my review.

While not a high level textbook, this small volume goes over many common myths correcting them with scientific and factual information, and reinforces those concepts which we all seemed to have heard as a kid and marks those with scientific support as true.Fun to read, really, without spewing out tons of math.

Bizarre tales of nature's mysterious wonders.Bogles the mind with unanswered questions

An excellent little book on lightning, especially for its price. Fairly non-technical, it gives a fine overview of nearly all the known characteristics of different types of lightning, and many hints of how to protect oneself from its effects. Answers nearly all the common questions about lightning. An excellent book for any person to read who lives in lightning country, which means just about anyone, anywhere.

Print too small

I bought this for myself, but a precocious ten year-old would enjoy this. Many older adults already know much of what's in this book. Some of the early history of research was interesting and amusing, but there was not much meat to that even. I was hoping for more. However, I'm not sorry I bought it, I'll be sending it to my precocious grandson.

If you want to learn about lightening without too much science this is a great book. Very well written by a top scientist in the field.

thorough

Not really what i expected to be . But , it covers about everything about lightning!

very good

peit livre broché format poche en anglais ancien (1986/1971) décrivant le phénomène qu'est l'éclair; après cinq pages d'introduction, le livre répond en 18 petits chapitres de quelques pages à toutes les questions que l'on peut se poser; texte très intéressant même si les données peuvent sembler dater pour les spécialistes, illustré par de nombreux schémas, cartes et photos en n&b; ce petit livre ravira, malgré son iconographie un peu vieillotte, les non initiés qui apprendront beaucoup de choses