Jupiter (fresco from the House of the Dioscuri, Pompeii, ca. 79 AD) Jupiter was the chief of the gods for the Romans, the way Zeus was for the Greeks and Thor was for the Germans. In fact, they must have all originally been the same Indo-European sky god. Jupiter and Zeus really have the same name - Jupiter comes from Ju-pater, [...]
A bolt of lightning in the sky Hot air and cold air are constantly moving around the Earth, as the hot air rises and the cold air sinks - that's what makes wind. Sometimes as this airmoves around, it gets more exciting than just wind, though. A thunderstorm begins when the wind picks up a lot of water from the [...]
A lot of rubber balloons. You can create your own static electricity and then discharge it like a tiny lightning bolt. Take a rubber balloon (just a regular balloon) and blow it up. Rub the balloon on the sleeve of your wool sweater, or on a regular terry-cloth towel. Or just rub the [...]
Playing a French horn makes sounds because you blow into it and that moves the air Like light, sound travels through the air in waves, but unlike light, sound is not made of lots of tiny particles. When something makes a sound, like you clapping your hands, it's because when you clapped your hands that shook the [...]
Indra, 4-5th c. AD (Mathura, India) In the earliest Hindu stories that we know of, from the Rig Veda, Indra is the ruler of the Hindu gods, the way Zeus is the ruler of the Greek gods, or Thor the ruler of the German gods. These stories probably go back at least to about 1000 BC. In the Rig Veda, Indra [...]
Phaethon drives Helios' chariot Phaethon was a little boy who lived alone with his mother. He started going to school, and the other children teased him because he didn't have any father. So when he got home he asked his mother, "Mom, who is my father?" At first his mother didn't want to tell him, [...]
Viking Bronze, from Iceland, 1000 AD Thor was the German god of strength, and the god of thunder and lightning (like Jupiter or Zeus). These three gods of the Greeks, Romans, and Germans were more or less the same because they all came from the same older Indo-European god. But there were some [...]
Lei Kung was the Chinese god of thunder, and his wife, Lei Zi, was the goddess of lightning. He makes thunder with his hammer, like the German god Thor, and Lei Zi makes lightning with her mirrors. Artists drew Lei Kung with a bird's head and wings and claws, and blue skin, and he rode [...]
