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Wikipedia Trail: From Indra to Pressure

This week, I researched more into Indra, the Thunder God, and followed a Wikipedia Trail that lead me to scientific pressure.

My starting point: Indra, the Thunder God. Indra is a deity in Hindi and Buddhist texts, and he is often thought of as the Thunder God, God of the heavens, rains, lightning, and rivers flowing. He is known for defeating Vritra, a serpent monster associated with the drought, and he is seen in high regard. Also mentioned on his page is:

Thor, the Norse God of Thunder. Thor is known for his red hair, beard, and his hammer that he wields. There is thought to be a parallel between Thor and Indra based on their hair color, and different weapons they wield that are considered to be signature items. Thor wields his hammer while Indra wields a thunderbolt named Vajra. Mentioned on Thor's page is:

Thunder. This one should seem obvious, but an interesting thing about thunder is that while it is often considered to be connected to lightning in some way, it is actually the sound produced by lightning. Lightning rapidly heats the air around it, and as known by the ideal gas law, if temperature increases with constant volume and moles, the pressure will also increase. This rapid increase creates a sonic shockwave that is known as thunder. Mentioned on the page for Thunder is:

Pressure. Formally, pressure is the amount of force per area, but it can be difficult to measure forces, so we often use things like manometers. If the density of a fluid is known, we can fill this tube with the fluid and see how much the atmosphere "pushes" down on the tube of known radius (thus known area), and determine the pressure that way. Pressure is also thought of in molecular collisions, where the time flux of momentum will cause collisions, and thus, pressure results from these.


A standard mercury column for measuring pressure. Source: Wikipedia

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  1. UnknownSeptember 2, 2018 at 10:06 PM

    Hi! In my extra-credit adventure to comment on recent posts I was excited to find one of the Wikipedia Trails blog posts- I love how easy it is to get lost in a series of articles, and the contrast of the first to the final. The structure of your post is so satisfyingly linear, and I appreciated the short, sweet, and succinct nature of it. Going from Indian mythology to a scientific area of measurement is a fun yet logical progression when broken down. Thanks for taking me on your journey as a reader!

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