The Water Cycle for Dummies

Lightning bolt

Every once in a while our researchers run across content-farm content that just plain flabbergasts them; something that just has to be shared with the whole staff. Today's DotD candidate is just such a post: in our first staff meeting of the year the team voted overwhelmingly to present Kienne Pisano of HubPages.com (where she calls herself Newton's Rival – how's that for self-aggrandizing!) for her treatise on "How lightning and rain are created!"¹ [exclamation point in original]. Let's just say, "Wow..."

Pisano's Facebook page claims study in quantum physics at MIT and criminal law at University of Phoenix, Vermont Law School, and Ashford University (though her LinkedIn page only mentions the diploma mill at Ashford U.). She's also an antivaxxer who thinks RT is "real news." Whatever... somehow, she claims, she came to "the hypothesis" she puts forward about how lightning actually happens and what causes rain. Here's some of it:

"As the water gets heated from the (lake) the oxygen atom becomes de-polarized, it voluntarily separates itself from the hydrogen atom..."

For starters, Kienne, evaporation and electrolysis of water aren't the same thing. It takes a lot more energy to separate oxygen from hydrogen than what's needed to evaporate water. Oh, and for what it's worth, there are two hydrogen atoms in H₂O. Next, she says,

"The hydrogen atom follows the oxygen atom up to the atmosphere and awaits the oxygen atom to do so, or will choose another oxygen host that is already ready for bonding..."

To which we can only say, "Huh???" and note that there's no free hydrogen in Earth's atmosphere. According to Pisano, lightning is caused by the "rebonding" of the hydrogen and oxygen atoms, because (she says),

"When the oxygen atom is ready the hydrogen atom re-bonds to the oxygen atom. UPON THIS EXACT BONDING MOMENT (AND YOU MAY RESEARCH THIS TO CONFIRM) A SMALL ELECTRICAL CHARGE IS PRODUCED [SHOUTING in original]."

Well, we researched that claim and found nothing to confirm Kienne's claim. If she wants to send us a reference, we'll be happy to read further. Oh, yeah, and here's how rain happens, according to Pisano:

"Once the hydrogen re-bonds to oxygen and the electrical charge is reestablished this bonded atom then re-falls to earth in the form of what we call rain. "

Ummm, yeah...

Ultimately, Newton's self-appointed rival then explains that "[This] answer may seem so obvious or simple, but most of the real answers in science are." Yeah, except that most real answers are based on science. Pisano's "hypothesis" violates several laws of physics, e.g., the energy budget is ridiculously lopsided, but it sure makes for "fun" reading. Oh, and it also makes for a Dumbass of the Day award.

¹ The original has been deleted , either by Hubpages or the author, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was   hubpages.com/education/How-lightning-and-rain-are-created

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