IIRC, the main reason we use AC instead of DC is the lower cost of transmission. I believe it was Edison that pushed for DC, because it was safer. Westinghouse and Tesla pushed for AC because of transformers and motors. Edison pointed to the fact that AC was used for executions, so it is inherently dangersous. All of this is from memory, so if I'm full of it, someone please correct me. -----Original Message----- From: Kevin Allenzovic To: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU Date: Friday, September 10, 1999 6:37 am Subject: Re: cats! -Reply This sounds a little impossible as AC would alternately contract and release your muscles forcing you to release it! This is one of the reasons we have AC supplied to our home and not DC, among ather obvious reasons. Edison pushed for the use of AC by demonstrating on a horse. He'd fist hit it with AC and watch it bolt. When caught he'd again shcok it with DC killing it stone dead. >>> Peter van Hoof 10/September/1999 12:16pm >>> This depends very much on circumstances sometimes defying logic or explanation as a teenager I grabbed the two poles of a 3kg heavy neon transformer...7kv @100ma... you would assume since current flowed from hand to hand, path over the chest this should be deadly..... it was not. I did not manage to release the poles but after about 15 seconds managed to kick the plug out of the outlet. I survived , shaken , but unharmed. Peter van Hoof ------------- mailto:pvh@vertonet.com http://go.to/pvh [snip] > more than is necessary to kill a cat,or a human for that matter. Also, I > hope the term "slight shock" in reference to 150mA is sarchastic,because > that is also more than a lethal level of current. > > For a person, IIRC, 1 or 2 mA is considered maximum safe level > (and this is > only from a medical standpoint, it is NOT considered safe to allow that > much to flow thru a person on purpose). By touching the case of an old > scope, I found out that I can actually slightly feel only a few 100uA (the > transformer-to-case isolation must have been less than it should > be,another > strong argument for isolation transformers!) Something like 4mA is pain > threshold, 20mA strong muscle contractions, 50mA heart rhythm disruption, > 100mA death likely. This also depends on the path the current > takes. I find > it AMAZING that defibrilators are designed to push something like 10A thru > a person! I wouldn't have thought it possible to do so without REALLY high > voltages and large burns. > > In short,I hope you didn't really do this because a little kid could > probably get killed by something like this. .