Eli5 How can high voltages push you away or is that a movie thing?
In: Biology
Some situations can create an explosion (called arc flash and arc blast, you don’t need to understand those, curious 5yo, they are just for your older brother to google for more) It’s not really as portrayed in the movie, but when two high voltage parts come too close together (by accident and without the usual fail-safe active), they create a small lighting bolt (called electrical arc, again the name isn’t needed for understanding) that produces so much heat it can even vaporize metal in some cases. That heat and hot gaz produced is the same result as what explosives do (transform a solid chemical into hot gaz)
But in most cases, it’s just gonna be a big fail-safe calmly turning it all off, like when you try to use an hair dryer, an hair straightener or a toaster and a coffeemaker at the same time and you need to reset the black thingy switch (breaker- the fail-safe) in the cupboard in the basement (electrical panel). But that doesn’t make for a good movie, so instead they portray what life would be without breakers (or fuses, which is the same, but is a one time use).
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