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From: warschel@castor.usc.edu (Arieh Warschel)
Newsgroups: sci.med,sci.electronics
Subject: Re: electric sleep
Message-ID: <982@nunki.usc.edu>
Date: 15 Jun 88 01:25:40 GMT
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Reply-To: gking@native.usc.edu (Greg King)
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In article  ron@topaz.rutgers.edu (Ron Natalie) writes:
>500 Watts seems a bit low to kill you outright, but since you mention
>the Thorax, I presume you mean that it can cause fatal cardiac arrythmia.
>500 Watts is about right there.  Actually the correct unit is probably
>Joules (Watts x Seconds).  The average energy for Cardiac Defibrillation
>is 200-400 Watt-Seconds.
>
>-Ron

I may be wrong about this, but it seems to me that one could easily
absorb 400 Joules or more of electrical energy, provided that the energy
is delivered sufficiently slowly (i.e. under low power).

Perhaps 500 Watts is the threshhold power that is dangerous to humans,
and exposures of 0.4 to 0.8 seconds (your 200-400 Joules) is what kills
people.

Greg King