Question

What is a lightning conductor? How does it work?

Answer 1

Hint: A conductor is a certain type of substance, which allows the electricity to pass through them easily whereas an insulator is one which doesn't allow the electricity to pass through them. A lightning conductor is used in almost every house or building to prevent unnecessary lightning strikes from the sky.

Complete answer:
A lightning conductor is also known as a lightning rod which is made of a metal which is a good conductor of electricity. This lightning rod is mounted over the topmost surface of a building and it’s been grounded over the building through a wire.

Whenever the lightning strikes in sky sometimes, it’s much powerful if passed directly through any substance like a human body or a building or a tree it can damage everything with its high intensity and in order to prevent such losses we mounted a metal rod over the top of the building and connect it through a good wire and then grounded this wire on earth.

Hence when the high intensity lightning strikes on this lightning conductor, electricity gets passed through the rod and then through the wire and as this wire is earthed so without damaging anything the electricity gets passed on the ground on earth safely and thus protecting the whole building.

Hence, a lightning conductor is simply a conducting rod which is used to protect buildings and houses by passing the electricity through the wire on grounded earth from unnecessary lightning strikes from sky which can damage buildings if passed directly through the substances.

Note: It should be remembered that a good quality of lightning rod metals must be used and the quality of wire such that it makes it easy to pass the high intense electricity without getting damaged itself. Copper is the most widely used as a metal in making of a lightning rod.