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From: bhoughto@pima.intel.com (Blair P. Houghton)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics,alt.sex
Subject: Re: HELP!
Message-ID: <2191@inews.intel.com>
Date: 30 Jan 91 02:07:53 GMT
References: <2011@fornax.UUCP> <1991Jan26.162913.1905@athena.cs.uga.edu> <1991Jan28.190057.1874@sj.ate.slb.com>
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Why alt.sex?

In article <1991Jan28.190057.1874@sj.ate.slb.com> poffen@sj.ate.slb.com (Russ Poffenberger) writes:
>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.
>
>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.

"Current" and "static" are antonymical.

You can withstand being at a high potential, as when you
stand on an insulator and hold a Van de Graaf hood, but
only because all of you is at that high potential.  If any
current at all passes through you (over the right path you
can be killed by nanoamps) you will be toasted.  If the
nearest conductor decides to arc to the generator, you will
likely have provided several feet of the path of least
resistance, and you will be fried.  In humid weather,
current will pass through you and through the air and into
any local grounded conductors; if you're lucky, the current
won't concentrate around any nerves in your body (including
muscle cells, which are mostly a special form of nerve).

If you want to get really picky about it, current doesn't
kill, voltage does, when it's produced by the uneven
buildup of charge on the crucial structures of the nerves
that regulate your heartbeat (again, including myocardial
cells themselves).

				--Blair
				  "Just defibrillating the newsgroup."