Today, we know sufficiently much about lightning to feel free from the mystic
fears of primitive people. We have learned to create protection technologies
and to make power transmission lines, skyscrapers, ships, aircraft, and spacecraft
less vulnerable to lightning. Yes, the danger is getting less but it still
exists! With every step of the technical progress, lightning arms itself with
a new weapon to continue the war by its own rules against the self-confident
engineer. As we improve our machines and stuff them with electronics in an
attempt to replace human beings, lightning acts in an ever refined manner. It
takes us by surprise where we do not expect it, making us feel helpless again
for some time.
We do not intend to present in this book a set of universal lightning
protection rules. Such a task would be as futile as advertising a universal antibiotic
lethal to every harmful microbe. The world is changeable, and today’s
panacea often becomes a useless pill even before the advertising sheet fades.
Technical progress has so far failed to take lightning unawares. Improvement
and miniaturization of devices increase our concern about the refined
destructive behaviour of lightning, but no prophet is able to foresee all of
its destructive effects.