This is called rectification, and rectifier diodes are most commonly used in low current power supplies. A switching diode is most often used to turn a circuit on or off, and band switching diodes are used for switching high frequency band signals.
Thunder occurs when energy from lightning heats and rapidly expands the air. The resulting sound wave gets heard as thunder. While lightning and thunder occur at roughly the same time, lightning travels at the speed of light, or at 186,000 miles a second, while thunder travels at the speed of sound, equivalent to one-fifth of a mile in one second. People see the lightning long before they hear the thunder.
Thunderstorms always have lightning (thunder is caused by lightning, and you can't have a thunderstorm without thunder), but you can have lightning without a thunderstorm. Lightning can also be seen in volcanic eruptions, extremely intense forest fires, surface nuclear detonations, and in heavy snowstorms.hat tends to happen when lightning strikes ground is that it fuses dirt and clays in to silicas. The result is often a glassy rock (called a fulgurite) in the shape of a convoluted tube. Fulgurite has been found all over the world, but is relatively rare.