If the Eel is the positive terminal, where’s the negative terminal? If you’re grounded by the water, would that mean the Eel can only shock you if you are in the water too? If the water is the final destination, why wouldn’t the current directly go from the Eel to the water? Why would it take a high resistance path through your body?
In: Physics
AC current.
Think of the voltage as the surface level of a pool. Let’s say electrocution means drowning a person in the pool. If there’s someone in the pool I can’t drown him with a non completed DC circuit. That’s like raising the water level. It accomplishes nothing, because he just floats along with the water level.
A completed DC circuit would be the equivalent of tying a rope around the person’s ankle and the bottom of the pool. This is the equivalent of *grounding* said person. Now if I raise the water level, he won’t follow the surface.
But, the point here is that we can’t ground him. So we rapidly lower and raise the surface level. If we do it fast enough, he’ll not be able to rise as fast as the surface does, and will get caught under the water.
When you change a voltage rapidly enough, the electrical “inertia” of a person’s body(parasitic capacitance) that they have relative to ground is enough to allow significant current to flow. The net average current will be zero, but rapidly going from positive to negative current back and forth is actually even more dangerous to our bodies if it matches the frequency our nerves operate at. This is, of course, the exact frequency the eel targets.
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