• Question: what exactly are electric shocks ?

    Asked by acjona13 to Alan, Caspar, Diana, Murray, Sarah on 21 Mar 2011.
    • Photo: Alan Winfield

      Alan Winfield answered on 19 Mar 2011:

      Well bodies are – as you know – mostly water. And water conducts electricity. So if live wires should touch you a circuit will form through your body. It’s the current flowing through your body that gives you an electric shock. If the current is large enough the the electric shock can be very dangerous indeed – perhaps fatal.

      Of course bodies also make use of electricity to work – Galvani first showed this by using static electricity to make frog muscles twitch. Although I don’t understand the physiology of what exactly happens to nerves I do know that big electric shocks can cause muscles to spasm or lock up. So electric shocks are dangerous not just because of the current that flows through the body but also the effect of electricity on the nervous system.

    • Photo: Caspar Addyman

      Caspar Addyman answered on 21 Mar 2011:

      your brain and your nerve fibres use electric signals to communicate. The nerves down your spine send signals to the muscles and get signals back from the muscles and from all sorts of pain and temperature receptors.

      So if you add some extra electricity to your body by accidently touching an electric fence or something this confuses your nevrous system. You jump because your muscles think they’ve just got a message and so they contract rapidly. And you feel a jolt of pain because your pain receptors also fire up.

    • Photo: Sarah Thomas

      Sarah Thomas answered on 21 Mar 2011:

      An electric shock is any source of electricity that causes a sufficient current through the skin, muscles or hair. Electric shocks can cause burns or heart problems.

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