Whats the real killer, voltage or amperage?

On Wed, 30 Aug 2006 02:41:18 -0400, Paul E. Schoen wrote: ..

I've heard that story ever since it came out, but have never been able to verify or refute it - to me, it has all of the aroma of an Urban Legend - there's another explanation that's less scary - little buzzers (joy buzzers?) embedded in the seats.

But it's so embedded in the mass psyche that we'll probably never find out.

Thanks, Rich

It's very easy to google for the info. The feature/gimmick was called "Percepto" and it vibrated (not shocked) about every 10th seat. Plus shills were used in the audience to scream.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

On Wed, 30 Aug 2006 23:06:56 GMT, Rich Grise Gave us:

Uh... that would be in SERIES with.

Years ago, lots of things were done which now would horrify the lawyers and the authorities today. I remember using an X-ray machine at the shoe store to see how my feet fit into a new pair of shoes. Yikes!

Al

Yes, but notice that it _is_ a series-parallel circuit. :-) Once it gets up your shoulder it's got your whole torso to spread out into. :-)

Cheers! Rich

Yes, well, sorry then. I forgot to mention that I had googled, and only one thing I found mentioned the buzzer, and all the rest said they had some military surplus shocking device, which sounds really remote to me - what would be the liability if someone got electrocuted? Or maybe they weren't all that worried about that stuff in those days. Remember those novelty shocker thingies, like a book with foil covers and a trigger transformer? I don't think you can get them any more. )-;

Thanks, Rich

For simplicity, current could be thought of as water in a garden hose and the pressure that pushes it out of the hose as voltage. One could also think of current as a bullet and voltage as the gunpowder. Looking at it that way, one could ask, "Is it the bullet that kills you or is it the gunpowder that propels the bullet?

Given that analogy, I suppose most people would conclude that it's the bullet that kills you even though gunpowder is required to propel it. There's also a third variable in the Ohm's-Law, formula for current, which is resistance. One might think of resistance as being like water when a bullet is fired into it. Water is 700 times denser than air. So bullets don't go very far in water.

Similarly, the human body probably has millions of times more resistance to electric current than copper wire. Anyway, the formula for determining current through the human body (or anything else) is:

I = V/R (Where "I" is current, "V" is voltage, and "R" is resistance

So, if you have high voltage and low resistance there will be a lot of current. On the otherhand, if you have low voltage and high resistance, the amount of current will be relatively small.

If you assume that 0.1 amps can be lethal and that the human body has a resistance of 100,000 ohms, for instance, then the amount of voltage that could result in a lethal amount of current would be:

V = IR V = 0.1A x 100,000 ohms V = 10,000 volts

On the otherhand, if the resistance is lower, like if you are standing on a wet floor or something and you have a weak heart, the figures might look more like this:

V = IR V = 0.01A x 10,000 ohms V = 100 Volts

Some electrical circuits are current limited. So, you can't always determine the amount of current simply by knowing the source voltage. Telephones in the U.S., for example, work on 48 Volts, but have built-in resistance that limits the current to about .020 to .070 amps.

If resistance is futile, try capacitance or inductance.

Or a flux capacitor.

So, during open heart surgery, do they wear anti-static shoes?

-Bill

Yes, but many anaesthetics are explosive.

Not only that, but antistatic gowns, caps, gloves, and everything else, and the whole room is essentially a faraday cage and every piece of equipment is isolated to some ridiculously high voltage.

Exploding patients are very, very expensive. ;-)

Cheers! Rich

In message , dated Mon, 11 Sep 2006, Rich Grise writes

Patients?? WHO CARES ABOUT THE PATIENTS? All that stuff is to protect the surgeons.

-- OOO - Own Opinions Only. Try

I thought the surgeons just played Sudoko these days

martin