Xref: utzoo sci.electronics:17308 alt.sex:24462
Path: utzoo!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!bcm!dimacs.rutgers.edu!mips!sjsca4!poffen
From: poffen@sj.ate.slb.com (Russ Poffenberger)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics,alt.sex
Subject: Re: HELP!
Message-ID: <1991Jan28.190057.1874@sj.ate.slb.com>
Date: 28 Jan 91 19:00:57 GMT
References: <1991Jan19.052458.7449@wam.umd.edu> <1991Jan26.041208.25354@athena.cs.uga.edu> <2011@fornax.UUCP> <1991Jan26.162913.1905@athena.cs.uga.edu>
Reply-To: poffen@sj.ate.slb.com (Russ Poffenberger)
Organization: Schlumberger Technologies, San Jose, CA.
Lines: 17

In article <1991Jan26.162913.1905@athena.cs.uga.edu> mcovingt@athena.cs.uga.edu (Michael A. Covington) writes:
>My point was that "Voltage doesn't kill, only current kills" is a
>dangerous half-truth.
>
>Of *course* high voltage isn't dangerous if supplied through a very
>high resistance, as in a Van de Graaff generator.
>
>But I've heard of people who believed that "voltage isn't dangerous
>-- only current is dangerous" and concluded that, e.g., sticking one's
>finger into a 120-V outlet isn't dangerous because that's a source
>of volts, not amps.


A Van de Graff generator produces STATIC electricity. STATIC electricity is far
less dangerous than conventional electricity, partly due to the very low
currents that are present. The other is the fact that STATIC electricity
tends to remain on the surface of an object as stored charges.