birds on electricity cables

http://www.word-detective.com/howcome/birdsonwires.html


See! You learn something new every day!

For significant work to be done two electrical connections are needed. The birds may feel a little tingle from St. Elmo's fire = corona on power lines up around 1/2 million volts. Some power line repair work is done from helicopters with the POWER ON. Neil

so in theory i could swing on the power lines as long as i didnt touch the pylon which would cause a complete circuit to earth?

not that im gonna try it lol

As long as you don't complete an electrical circuit: yes.

Okay, so if I plug in a radio, and drop it in my bathtub, I'll be electrocuted. But if I drop it in the Mississippi River, why doesn't it electrocute people wading in the Ganges?

I assume the electrical current is too small and gets like absorbed into the large body of water so u wouldnt shock anything more than like 10 feet away or less. Once i'm just guessing

Working on one leg of an energized high tension circuit ... many thousands of volts and amps ... is common, if a bit speciallized. The technician doing the work employs a method called "Grabbing On" or "Latching On", whereby at no time is that technician in contact with anything other than the single leg of the energized circuit on which work is to be performed. The technique is employed both on power distribution lines, and on circuits conveying signal to high-power transmitting antennas, such as are used for broadcast radio and television. microwave relay, satellite uplink, and for military and civil radar transmitters. Following completion of work, a process known as "Casting Off" or "Delatching" is employed, again during which the technician is in contact with nothing for a moment after releasing from the energized line. Some skill, training, teamwork, and a little faith are required.

sounds a bit dangerous to me

Nahhhh not at all. Just don't screw up

Could be very shocking,

and then if you want to go ohm don't do anything to revolting.

can you get a charge out of these curent puns?

groan!!!

Wat,

Wire do you groan?


maybe these jokes did not transform right?

the jokes get worse

Why do you show such resistance to the puns, iceman?

LOL! My son has asked me this question a thousand times in his 13 years. I finally have an answer! Thank you!

Now, when lightening strikes the ocean do the fish die? For how far out from around the strike?

And, When lightening strikes our pool, does the bolt head straight to the ground in a direct path or disipate and electrify the whole pool which is 20 X 32 feet? Where does the electricity exit?

Oh, and one more... Why is the sky blue? (Just kidding on that one. I knew the answer to one of his many questions!)

There likely is not much data on how many fish die from a lightening strike in the ocean, but we can make some assumptions and calculations which may give us a good estimate. Simultaneous strikes a few meters apart are not unusual. Lets assume 10,000 amps. One meter from a strike point the current is divided pretty evenly over the surface area of 1/2 sphere = 2 times 3.1416 times one squared = 6.28 square meters. The current is 1592 amps per square meter. A very large fish might have a cross section area of one square meter at right angles to the current flow, so 1592 amps would all but surely kill the large fish, even though it lasts perhaps 0.001 seconds. A very small fish however might have only one millionth that much cross sectional area at right angles to the direction of current flow, so it would experience 1.6 milliamp which would not cause any injury at a distance of one meter from the strike point.
For the in between size fish the current would increase as the square of the fishes length (approximately). I think we can conclude that all but the smallest fish closer than one meter would die. or be stunned, while only the largest fish more than one meter from the strike point would be killed or stunned. Shallow water would result in a bit more current on the side of the sphere facing the bottom. Tile and vynal in swimming pools are poor electrical conductors, so the flow would be concentrated a bit in the direction of metal such as the pool ladder. The low electrical conductivity of pool water would produce a voltage gradient in the direction of current flow. Even so, the ocean distances are probably a good approximation for a swimming pool also, unless the human was standing on the bottom. If standing on the bottom death could occur as much as 5 meters from the strike point. Please correct, embellish, or comment. Neil

errr......neil did you used to be my physics teacher by any chance

Remember for birds on a wire - there feet are close together - maybe only 1 cm or less - so for any significant current to go thru them their resistance needs to be much higher than the resistance on 1cm of the steel wire.

If you're caught on the ground in a lightning storm theadvic is 1) always squat- to make yourslef as low as possible to groundlevel and 2) stand with your feet right ogether - or one on top of the other in case lightning strikes near you.

The wider apart are your feet the higher potential difference between the voltage at the foot closest to the strike and that one furtherest away, and if the potential is to high the current will arch thru you.