Noah these are all good questions. Another one is if lightning does hit a whale, does the current just cruise around the whale's wet body instead of penetrating to it's organs?

Although it's possible all the current flowing around would still burn the whale enough to kill it: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...2205552AAO51vR

"If a whale was on the surface and the lightning hit it, it would be burned and possibly killed."

i don't think it's reasonable to extrapolate from the way humans learn (both from experience and from others). while there are still plenty of unanswered questions in human evolutionary psychology, it's pretty well understood that a a substantial part of animal instinct has been evolutionarily developed.

How the hell are the arguments in the single digits? You guys do know that whales get sick, get beached, get enclosed in a place that isn't the ocean, etc. There's no way to solve this bet, but I'd stake my life on the number being over 600, and it's almost surely over 6k. I mean, this is in the whole effing history of whales right?

-Michael

These are just more reasons why the correct number, 7, is so hard to wrap your mind around. I can't tell you how many bar bets I've won on how many whales have been killed by lightning in the earth's history.

I'm pretty sure that this entire website is proof that people like the combination of gambling and arguing.

And boobies.

Also I think both you and your friend are on the low side, based on the super awesome math post with the map.

Agreed about distilled water, but pool water has a lot of stuff in it. Pools are expensive to drain but need to have chlorine (or whatever) added more or less regularly. In addition to chlorine and buffering stuff, we used to add cupric sulfate crystals to make the pool water a pretty blue (and kill algae). I don't recall checking the conductivity of pool water, but I'll bet most pool water is at least a weak conductor. I don't know if that matters if a whale or human is on the top of the water and gets zapped with lightning.

I do remember getting the hell out of the pool or ocean when it was raining, and making sure everybody I was lifeguarding got the hell out too.

Probably not a good idea to play golf during a thunderstorm either. Just my opinion.

Buzz

I've wondered about the sanity of whales that beach themselves. I suppose some whales could be retarded, relative to other whales.

Buzz

I think that Suzzer massively overestimates the number of whales in costal regions.

eg, Australia has around 25,760 km of coast (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...h_of_coastline)

Apart from migratory movements up and down either coast from time to time, there are very few whales living in this area, and consequently, he massively overestimates the number of whales getting struck by lightning.

His maths is based on the assumption that whales predominantly live in coastal regions, and further, on the hugely overestimate density of one whale per square kilometre. This is hugely overestimated - I suspect that in the 25,760km coastline of Australia (which has above average whale volumes, when compared to the rest of the word) I suspect there is well under 100 whales currently located within 100km of the coast.

Thus:

I think he overestimates the coastal density of whales by well over 250 times.

I think that whales live much less densely than he expects - I think that one per square km is hugely over representing their true density.

Further, Suzzer claims that the lightning strikes per square kilometer of coastal regions is 7 per annum. I think he has misread the chart, because it appears to me that the average is .7 (point seven) strikes per year. Thus, I think the true number of strikes has been overestimated by 10 times.

Further, I think that the assumption that whales are equally likely to get struck by lightning as the surrounding water is incorrect - given their non conductive nature, it seems to me that they are much less likely to be hit by lightning than their surrounds, and that this factor may decrease the incidences of death by many, many times.

So what you're saying is... he overestimated. IYO

This question calls for a reunion of these guys

This is why the correct answer is 7.

Has anyone asked the obvious followup:


How many 5 year olds could a whale beat in a fight?

if every 4th post of yours is this awesome, you will go places here imo

Josem, the point is even if you're right, divide my answer by 250, then by 10 and you still get 100k whales killed by lightning in history. The whole point of my exercise is that you're not going to get the number anywhere near zero just based on the sheer odds lightning strikes the patch of water a whale is surfacing in. Also come to CA and go whale watching. Pacific whales travel from the Artic to breeding grounds in Mexico all the time. Whale watching boats barely have to get a mile off shore. Even if this isn't their full time home, they spend several months on the migration, which is a lot of time near the coast.

Now as far as conductivity that's a better argument. We need actual science or something for that. Although on that note, this is interesting:

http://www.sciencenetlinks.com/sci_update.cfm?DocID=54

Don:
"Basically lightning stays more on the surface of the water rather than penetrating it. That's because water is a reasonably good conductor, and a good conductor keeps most of the current on the surface."

So, when lightning hits the water, the current zips across the surface in all directions. And if you're swimming anywhere in the vicinity, it'll probably hit you. But below the surface, most of the electricity is instantly neutralized. So the fish are generally spared.

Of course, if the fish happen to be surfacing, they're at risk just like you are. And Dr. MacGorman adds that some electricity does penetrate the water, right at the strike point.


Which might suggest that even if the lightning strikes near the whale it could still kill it, maybe just from burn wounds.