Can lightning come through a glass window without breaking the glass?

Answer 1

Yes

Answer 2

No, there would be a puncture at least. glass has a low enough dielectric strength (200-300 thousand volts per inch of glass) that lightning (millions of volts) can literally punch through it under certain circumstances. It would leave a dendritic breakdown pattern in it. The lighting is more likely to go around the glass, but if there was an attractive sharp grounded object or something immediately on other other side, pow, right through.

Answer 3

Lightning is an electrical phenomenon caused by dielectric breakdown, and some cases produce explosion than can shatter even large structure. in your question, obviously the answer is NO, remember glass window are insulator in nature, it will not allow electricity to pass through and so lightning, and if then lightning enters the area through glass window, that window for sure will break into pieces first.

Answer 4

Lightning doesn't come through glass.

Glass is an excellent insulator used in "lightning arrestors" on communication equipment to prevent current from travelling through the antenna and damaging the equipment for just that reason.

Sooooo, I'm going to say yes and no. Yes it can go AROUND glass without breaking the glass, but no, it cannot go THROUGH glass.

Answer 5

If the window had some sort of conductive component to it, say a metal wire, then it could. There is a possibility of heating it up and causing melting around the wire, but as long as the wire is grounded, I do not think that the lightning will shatter the glass.

Answer 6

Short Answer:

It is possible but glass breakdown voltage is quite high, at 2,000 to 3,000 kV/in. Typical Lightning voltages are usually greater than 20 kV, but can be millions of volts. So there is a possibility but rare and depends on the circumstances.

If the lightning passes through the glass, it will be at very high breakdown voltages and there should be cracks (changes to the glass molecules). This would be rare. Glass is a good insulator.

Details:

Insulator breakdown voltage

The atoms in insulating materials have very tightly-bound electrons, resisting free electron flow very well. However, insulators cannot resist indefinite amounts of voltage. With enough voltage applied, any insulating material will eventually succumb to the electrical "pressure" and electron flow will occur. However, unlike the situation with conductors where current is in a linear proportion to applied voltage (given a fixed resistance), current through an insulator is quite nonlinear: for voltages below a certain threshold level, virtually no electrons will flow, but if the voltage exceeds that threshold, there will be a rush of current.

Once current is forced through an insulating material, breakdown of that material's molecular structure has occurred. After breakdown, the material may or may not behave as an insulator any more, the molecular structure having been altered by the breach. There is usually a localized "puncture" of the insulating medium where the electrons flowed during breakdown.

Thickness of an insulating material plays a role in determining its breakdown voltage, otherwise known as dielectric strength. Specific dielectric strength is sometimes listed in terms of volts per mil (1/1000 of an inch), or kilovolts per inch (the two units are equivalent), but in practice it has been found that the relationship between breakdown voltage and thickness is not exactly linear. An insulator three times as thick has a dielectric strength slightly less than 3 times as much. However, for rough estimation use, volt-per-thickness ratings are fine.


Material* Dielectric strength (kV/inch)
===========================================
Vacuum ------------------- 20
Air ---------------------- 20 to 75
Porcelain ---------------- 40 to 200
Paraffin Wax ------------- 200 to 300
Transformer Oil ---------- 400
Bakelite ----------------- 300 to 550
Rubber ------------------- 450 to 700
Shellac ------------------ 900
Paper -------------------- 1250
Teflon ------------------- 1500
Glass -------------------- 2000 to 3000
Mica --------------------- 5000

* = Materials listed are specially prepared for electrical use.

REVIEW:
With a high enough applied voltage, electrons can be freed from the atoms of insulating materials, resulting in current through that material.

The minimum voltage required to "violate" an insulator by forcing current through it is called the breakdown voltage, or dielectric strength.

The thicker a piece of insulating material, the higher the breakdown voltage, all other factors being equal.

Specific dielectric strength is typically rated in one of two equivalent units: volts per mil, or kilovolts per inch.


Sources:
http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/vol_1/chpt_12/8.html

Answer 7

I don't think so