Hurh,
I thought about it and I have a few questions about both the science behind the feasibility of such a project and the practical issues regarding it.
The Glass Necklace
First off:
In theory, could it work?
Of course, glass can be made by lightning hitting sand. Image Link. I've seen nicer looking specimens myself, but that's what google gave me.
The question, I guess, which I will assume is yes, would lightning be attracted to something which the conductivity, thanks to the break and the fact the lightning has to go through the sand, is lower than many other things (i.e., anything with a higher conductivity than sand) that is below? And if so, could this be negated by the distance the balloon is up in the air?
And can temperature of whatever the container is could be raised to a sufficient level so that the lightning going through the sand is unnecessary?
Practically, would lightning just destroy anything like a container it finds? I could definitely see under the extremes just about anything you put in a container under those temps just blowing to bits.
And, if there is a way this is possible, what measurements of different ingredients besides sand would be ideal? I don't know if there would be a difference in materials, but we're not talking normal glass making.
I don't know why I'm thinking about this, someone e-mailed me an earlier comic and I clicked forward several times and came to that.
I should probably start a poll in the opinions forum on my level of geekiness on a scale of 1-10 for even thinking about posting a series of questions like this.