--
  My dad used to tell me a story about a physics teacher he had in
high school.  The teacher was doing the demonstration where you make a
metal ring flow over a electric magnet with AC power.  He then was going
to demonstrate how if he unhooked the power, the metal ring would fall,
but when he unhooked the wires from his source, the coil be came a big
spark plug and sent him to the floor.

JoE

On Sat, 6 Mar 2004, Mike Hawkshaw wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Hulatt, Jon" <jhulatt@MONSTEREUROPE.COM>
> To: <PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
> Sent: Friday, March 05, 2004 3:06 PM
> Subject: Re: [OT:] More stupid electrical tricks...
> Scary story snipped.
>
> My dad was a domestic electrician and as a 16 year old I used to help him do
> re-wires from time to time. The funniest thing I ever saw (funny after the
> event - scary at the time) was when we came to wire up the cooker in this
> house. We'd moved the cooker a bit to one side and the fridge a bit to the
> other, so he could squeze between them and get to the old cooker cable. He
> cut through the cable close to the hole in the floor where it emerged, and
> then proceded to push it through the hole in the floor in order to get the
> new wire in. Unfortunately, being 6 square mm cable, he had to cut from one
> side and then the other, so he had not actually cut through the whole thing
> in one go (which is what I always try and do). Also unfortunately, the
> cowboy who'd fitted the cooker had wired the thing up from the 30 amp socket
> ring main, (which was the only circuit that was live due to us using the
> electric drill)
>
> I'll never forget the image of him squirming between too well earthed
> appliances with his finger on the end of 240 volts. The air got pretty blue
> for a couple of seconds as well, I have to say.
>
> Morale of the story? Trust no one where your life is concerned.
>
> > Also, distinctly shocked at the wiring for that spur. I've arranged with
> the
> > electricity company for them to disconnect my circuit so I can remove the
> > spur, since it's lethal.
> Also, Jon, at a rough guess the prospective fault current at your
> "intrestingly wired" spur is probably between 2000 and 5000 amps. That's
> quite incredible, really, if you consider that one can weld with 10 amps!!
> You're definately doing the right thing in getting rid of it.
>
> Keep safe.....Mike.
>
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