Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!amdahl!pyramid!prls!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!johnmill From: johnmill@mmintl.UUCP (John Miller) Newsgroups: sci.med,sci.electronics Subject: Re: electric sleep Message-ID: <2869@mmintl.UUCP> Date: 9 Jun 88 19:28:50 GMT References: <22@<1801> <21500051@uiucdcsm> <2548@kitty.UUCP> <1687@sigma.UUCP> Reply-To: johnmill@mmintl.UUCP (John Miller) Organization: Ashton-Tate, East Hartford, CT. Lines: 34 Xref: utzoo sci.med:5734 sci.electronics:3088 In article <1687@sigma.UUCP> bill@sigma.UUCP (William Swan) writes: >Uhhh.. do you mean, perhaps, 100 uA? Seeing as how fatal 60hz currents >are normally somewhere in the range of 5-20 mA, 100 mA sounds kinda high. I assume you mean 120v 60Hz currents ... Then I am dead many times over. A very rough rule of thumb is that it takes 500 watts through the thorax to kill a normal healthy adult human. Under ideal conditions -- say, your hands are wet with salt water and you have a tight grip on appropriate terminals with each of them -- 50 volts can drive 10 amps through you, and by this criteria can kill you. Conversly, I've been charged to over a million volts, every hair on my body standing straight out and blue corona around my finger- tips, and hardly felt a tingle; the current through my body being some small fraction of a microamp. High frequency current flow tends to migrate to the surface of the conducting body, so under proper conditions you can conduct many times 500 watts without much direct electrical effect -- but you may get burned at entry and exit points. Burns also are the real cause of death in many cases reported by the press as "electrocution." Sorry, I can't give you any references for the above. It has been many years since I experimented with such things. Back then it was "cycles per second" instead of "hertz," and I suppose I should talked in terms of "volt-amps" instead of watts. I have abnormally dry skin and it takes more voltage to drive a given current through me than for most people. In my wasted youth I sometimes accepted challenges as to who could take the most "juice" and nearly always won. I have taken dosages not far below the 500 watt level mentioned above and I want you to know that it didn't affect me didn't affect me didn't affect me didn't affect me didn't affect me didn't affect me