The New York Times: Do You Know What Lightning Really Looks Like?

I was quoted in a The New York Times story comparing artistic renderings of lightening with actual photographs of the dramatic weather phenomena.

Offering context, I told the Times that the new work fits into a long history of scientists drawing a boundary between artistic and photographic representations of lightning — and an even longer history of scientists and artists pitting their fields against one another. When the discipline of meteorology emerged in the mid-19th century, meteorologists struggled to move public understanding of weather away from superstition and folklore.

“They wanted to replace what they derisively called ‘weather fallacies’ with ‘weather truths’ or ‘facts.'” This was around the same time that the first photographs of lightning were taken, showing the inaccuracy of conventional depictions of lightning.

Read more in The New York Times.