[ELI5] Why current can kill you “easily” but voltage not?

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I have encountered several articles and posts saying that what electrocute you and cause death is actually not the voltage but the current instead but is not clear to me how this works.

In: Physics

11 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

A million volts can connect through you. How many of those million volts are inside you? A very tiny amount. That voltage inside you is only determined by its current.

Static electricity can be somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000 volts. How much of that voltage is passing through your arm? Only the current (and the conductivity of your arm) determines that. So we don’t even discuss voltage. Discuss current.

It only takes a milliamp (at the right time) passing through the heart to kill. A voltage across that heart is only determined by that 1 milliamp current. So current (not voltage) is a relevant parameter.

In mathematics, current would be an independent variable. Voltage, a dependent variable.