- #1
brendan_foo
- 65
- 0
Hi folks,
I was just looking into conduction as part of an electric shock, as in, the flow mechanism, when I ran across an article about such things, which states:
"However, NO ELECTRONS FLOWED THROUGH YOUR BODY AT ALL. The electric charges in a human body are entirely composed of positive and negative charged atoms. During your electrocution, it was these atoms which flowed along as an electric current. The electric current was a flow of positive sodium and potassium atoms, negative chlorine, and numerous other more complex positive and negative molecules."
This is taken in context about an electric shock.
Ok - for an electrostatic case, understandably surface electrons will naturally build up a net high potential and lead to a tiny low current shock etc.. etc.. But in regards to a shock due to electric current, in a conventional sense, surely the body acts as a conduit for electrons to flow.
The argument that the flow is of cat/anions present in the body seems plausable, but however, the body consists of a somewhat finite concentration of such charge carriers. To insist that "NO ELECTRONS FLOW" PERIOD, would suggest that the human body acts as a dielectric upon the point where the ions in the body converge to their respective opposite polarities. Thusly maintaining a potential difference across the body, but no current would surely flow after the transient current in the body subsides.
Also, isn't it ludicrous to think that such potassium, sodium etc.. ions would flow to a conductor and contribute a proportion of the algebraic sum of current.
This one threw me off a little.. Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks
Brendan
I was just looking into conduction as part of an electric shock, as in, the flow mechanism, when I ran across an article about such things, which states:
"However, NO ELECTRONS FLOWED THROUGH YOUR BODY AT ALL. The electric charges in a human body are entirely composed of positive and negative charged atoms. During your electrocution, it was these atoms which flowed along as an electric current. The electric current was a flow of positive sodium and potassium atoms, negative chlorine, and numerous other more complex positive and negative molecules."
This is taken in context about an electric shock.
Ok - for an electrostatic case, understandably surface electrons will naturally build up a net high potential and lead to a tiny low current shock etc.. etc.. But in regards to a shock due to electric current, in a conventional sense, surely the body acts as a conduit for electrons to flow.
The argument that the flow is of cat/anions present in the body seems plausable, but however, the body consists of a somewhat finite concentration of such charge carriers. To insist that "NO ELECTRONS FLOW" PERIOD, would suggest that the human body acts as a dielectric upon the point where the ions in the body converge to their respective opposite polarities. Thusly maintaining a potential difference across the body, but no current would surely flow after the transient current in the body subsides.
Also, isn't it ludicrous to think that such potassium, sodium etc.. ions would flow to a conductor and contribute a proportion of the algebraic sum of current.
This one threw me off a little.. Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks
Brendan