As a crude model for lightning, consider the groundto be one plate of a parallel-plate capacitor and a cloud at an altitude of 550 m to be the other plate. Assume the surface area of thecloud to be the same as the area of a square that is 0.50 km on aside. (a) What is the capacitance of this capacitor? (b) How muchcharge can the cloud hold before the dielectric strength of the airis exceeded and a spark (lightning) results?

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As a crude model for lightning, consider the ground
to be one plate of a parallel-plate capacitor and a cloud at an altitude of 550 m to be the other plate. Assume the surface area of the
cloud to be the same as the area of a square that is 0.50 km on a
side. (a) What is the capacitance of this capacitor? (b) How much
charge can the cloud hold before the dielectric strength of the air
is exceeded and a spark (lightning) results?

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