boogyman19946
- May 2, 2011
- 38
- Joined
- May 2, 2011
- Messages
- 38
My dad and I were arguing today over which property of electricity has to be high enough to kill a person. My dad argues that it is voltage that kills because an arc welder generates high current yet it fails to shock a person because of low voltage; I fought that idea by saying that the human body has a significantly higher resistance than the path that his hands would come in contact with with and so there would be a miniscule current through his body (if any at all) while most will still flow through the wires. When asked to show how I know that current kills, I fell a little short on arguments XD.
Now, I figure it's not exactly a clear cut equation considering that voltage and current are closely related and inevitably having generating a high voltage, one should also get higher current, all other factors being equal (including resistance). But if we had two humans with bodies of different resistances (let us supposed one has 2kOhm and the other has 1.5kOhm), what kind of electricity (what would be it's voltage vs current) would be required to kill either of them.
Also, how is it possible that a welding machine can generate current that is higher than it's voltage? The only way that I can explain it is that we're taking the voltage after all the voltage drops to that point and going from there, since current stays the same throughout the entire circuit. I figure that voltage is not really a measure of some kind of instantaneous property but rather the difference in "charge" between two points.
Now, I figure it's not exactly a clear cut equation considering that voltage and current are closely related and inevitably having generating a high voltage, one should also get higher current, all other factors being equal (including resistance). But if we had two humans with bodies of different resistances (let us supposed one has 2kOhm and the other has 1.5kOhm), what kind of electricity (what would be it's voltage vs current) would be required to kill either of them.
Also, how is it possible that a welding machine can generate current that is higher than it's voltage? The only way that I can explain it is that we're taking the voltage after all the voltage drops to that point and going from there, since current stays the same throughout the entire circuit. I figure that voltage is not really a measure of some kind of instantaneous property but rather the difference in "charge" between two points.
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