Why do birds not get shocked while they sit on high voltage transmission lines but people get shocked the moment they touch those lines?

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Why do birds not get shocked while they sit on high voltage transmission lines but people get shocked the moment they touch those lines?

In: Physics

4 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Current doesn’t go through your body unless there’s something that it really wants to go to on the other side- for example, the ground. When birds sit on lines they just get a tiny bit of charge on their feet which is harmless. When you touch the line while standing on or holding onto something, the charge will move through your body causing big damage.

Anonymous 0 Comments

You would get shocked if you were standing on the ground and touched a live power line because you have now created a connection from the power source to ground. But, if you were simply hanging from the wire without touching anything else you wouldn’t get shocked because there was no circuit to complete.

Anonymous 0 Comments

The birds on the line are not making a circuit to Earth so the current does not flow through them so they don’t get shocked.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Humans die because when they touch it, they are touching something else as well, allowing a path for the current to flow.

If You touch two separate wires You will die. If You touch a wire and the ground, you will die.

A bird is only touching the one wire by itself