Stupid question

[Gary]

I have an embarrassing psychological condition that causes me to remember in detail the most inane trivia from thirty-plus years ago, whilst forgetting my best friend's name or what happened the day before yesterday.

I have this same condition!

[Lonestarjohnny]

whoever told you this was a smart person, he's correct on all count's, I work high voltage all the time in the oilfield, it's dangerous, I picked up a plug once that another guy had wired in front of me and he was qualified, but he made 2 mistakes, he left a groundlug inside the plug that he should have removed, then he left said cable and plug laying on freshly rained on soil, we were gonna get a inspection shortly so I picked up the plug in my hand, it slowly started cookin my ass, just as thing's started going grey, I rialized I could'nt turn loose of it, so I slung my hand as hard as I could, luckily it slung the plug loose from my hand burning me to the point of blisters, and yes it did knock me out for a short, that was just one leg of 3phase 480 V.A.C..
JD

[Rick]

There was a sad accident in my town a few years ago where dad was showing his young son how to jump start another car. He somehow crowbarred the 12v battery terminals with a wrench (he was standing in a puddle of water) and it killed him. As we know car batts can supply hundreds of amps so be careful of the power here always. Maybe another way to look at this is the old PIE power formula. (power in watts = current x voltage)
So lets just say the battery could deliver 500amps, thats 500 X 12v = 6000 watts of power delivered at a dead short. Or how about a 20,000 volt neon sign transformer at 3ma. You are more likely to be shocked by this just because of the voltage pressure if you get too close, but this is 60 watts of power - you'd probably survive a brief shock like this but likely not the car battery scenario. Watch out for too much overall power, and heed the previous great points made here.

[R.G.]

HENCE IT IS SAFE TO TOUCH BOTH CONTACTS WHEN THE LIGHT IS ON, BUT NOT WHEN THE LIGHT IS OFF -

Sigh...

The switch is carrying the hot (power side of the AC line). It interrupts this going to the bulb, which connects the hot side to the neutral side, which is grounded back at the power pole. So the neutral side always sits within a few volts of real earth ground, and the hot side always sits at power voltage, 120Vac nominal in the US. With the switch turned off, the bulb side is at ground, the power side is at 120vac, and you can fry touching both contacts.

With the switch turned on, both sides of the switch are at 120Vac, and there is no voltage across the switch.

There is, however still 120Vac (+/- a few) FROM BOTH SIDES OF THE SWITCH TO EARTH GROUND. There are earth grounds everywhere. Unless you're happy playing bird-on-a-wire and never touching anything else that is at earth ground potential, touching that closed switch where both sides are at 120Vac is only one leakage path away from death.

And they say that Darwin didn't have it right... sigh...

8-)

[Hal]

Alex - I learned about current a similar way. I licked the battery from a portable phone that wasn't working, to see if that was hte problem.  I think it was rated at about 7v.  That thing hurt a hell of a lot more than a 9v!  I guess it wasn't the battery that was the problem...:-D

[Ge_Whiz]

...only one leakage path away from death.

I concur entirely. But take suitable precautions, wear decent shoes - no leakage path, no death. BUT AGAIN, don't try this at home, Darwinists.