Eli5: if electricity passes through you and into the ground, does that cause a fuse to blow?

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I’ve just watched an old tv show where the main character is tortured in someone’s basement with a live wire. The current is obviously flowing from the wire, through him and into the ground. Why does this not cause the fuse to blow?

I think this is probably just an error on their part, but I’m kinda curious now if that’s actually correct or not. I’m tempted to steal the idea for a book I’m writing but I’d need to know first whether or not that’s a valid method of torturing someone (never thought I’d find myself writing that sentence 😆).

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Why do you think that would cause a fuse to blow?

Fuses blow when you try to run more *current* through them than they are rated. Generally somewhere around 10 amps or so.

Current equals Voltage/Resistance. This means that if you have a really high voltage, but also a really high resistance the current is low. So if you have a million volts going thru 1 million ohms of resistance your fuses will be fine.

Infact, most torture via electricity will be a lot less than 10 amps. Electrica chairs (you know…used to *kill people*) usually never go past about 12 amps or so.

This is of course ignoring the very easy (but dangerous) option of just…bypassing fuses.

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