this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2025
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Science Memes

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[–] [email protected] 46 points 2 weeks ago (18 children)

"it's current not voltage that kills you"

High voltage: "Por que no los dos?"

[–] WolfLink 14 points 2 weeks ago (9 children)

I always thought that was a dumb saying because voltage is specifically what allows there to be a lethal current.

[–] booly 2 points 2 weeks ago

In static electric fields, sure. But the real world has rapidly changing electric fields, and mapping concepts like voltage or resistance to a time dimension starts to require imaginary numbers (and the complex analogue to resistance goes by a different name of impedance). And once you're modeling electricity through those concepts, you can have high current in a particular moment in time where the voltage might not be high. Or where the implied voltage is very high but was actually more of an effect than a cause.

In other words, if you're simply talking about "resistance," you're already in the wrong domain to be analyzing electrical safety properly.

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