If I touch an electricity source (let’s say a phase wire) with my index finger, and another very conductive material with my little finger, will the current go only through my hand?

Question

Or will it nevertheless go through my body and wreak havoc like it normally would?

I’m not actually planning on conducting (pun intended) this experiment, just wondering whether the electricity could be “guided” through the body in any predictable way.

In: 49

Answer 1

I can say from experience that it will just go through your hand. Back when I was in 9th grade science, our classroom was setup so we had three long rows of continuous tables where there was an outlet and a sink for each group of two students (who were lab partners). There was one two week period where the teacher was out, and we had a different sub each day. We started figuring out all kinds of crazy shit to do. I figured out that if you took a spiral notebook, and pulled the end out a bit to make it straight, you could put the spiral in the socket, and then touch the metal faucet on the sink, and if you did it with the same hand, yes, it would send a shock through your hand. If you did it with the other hand, it would send a shock across your arms and chest to the other hand. If you touched the spiral and held hands with someone who touched a sink, it would go through both of you. The longest we got was a chain of 15 people all holding hands while I touched the spiral and the 15th touched the faucet at his sink, and it went through all of us.

For those curious, it was a pretty weak shock, like definitely noticeable, but not something that hurt or jarred you.