Current running through headphone cord?

Oct 20, 2003 20 Replies

I've read some of Dalziel's papers from the experiments he did at Berkeley that pretty much established the "standard" values for things like let-go current. This is the guy who invented the GFCI, among other things. His experiments involved having students hold an energized wire, then attempt to let go, and the range of values he published have been used ever since in electrical safety work. He was able to get the male subjects to make it a competition, so they really tried hard and would put up with extreme pain to show that they could handle a stronger shock than the next guy. This gave him good data on let-go currents for men, at least for men of grad-student age. He complained that he couldn't get as good data for women, because they weren't interested in outdoing each other, and would do one or two tests, then decide enough was enough. His photos of the expressions and body contortions the tests put his subjects into make it clear that you don't ever want to experience a shock anywhere close to let-go current.

The standard assumptions for electrical safety still show lower let-go currents for women than men, and it's still not known whether women really are more likely to freeze onto a live conductor, or whether Dalziel just proved that women are smarter than men.

73, JohnW

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