Emyrssentry t1_jefkwkh wrote on March 31, 2023 at 5:26 PM

High voltage lines have the ability to ionize the air around them, and turn the air into a wire. If that area of ionized air can reach something that grounds the wire, you'll get an arc. This is lightning.

And so if you get too close, the wire could ionize the air around them, and that ionized air touches you, and since you can ground the wire, it arcs to you, causing electricity to flow through you, potentially stopping your heart.

[deleted] t1_jefo6np wrote on March 31, 2023 at 5:47 PM

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GalFisk t1_jefolbh wrote on March 31, 2023 at 5:50 PM

DC is actually better at arcing, because the electric field is constantly on instead of disappearing several times per second. This is the reason you find switches and relays rated for far lower DC than AC voltages.

mmmmmmBacon12345 t1_jefscax wrote on March 31, 2023 at 6:15 PM

>Is this because we are using AC rather than DC, which creates far more and continuous emr and is capable of much greater induction?

You've misunderstood something somewhere along the way. You're throwing out words in ways that don't make sense

First, why are you discussing Electromagnetic radiation(assuming that's what EMR is since its uncommon to discuss) instead of electric field strength?

DC creates a static magnetic field and a static electric field. The strength of the magnetic field is proportional to the current and the strength of the electric field is proportional to the voltage

AC creates a changing magnetic and electric field but the strength of the magnetic field is still proportional to the current and the strength of the electric field is still proportional to the voltage

Inductance refers to how much energy is stored in the magnetic field and is a property of the windings and magnetic core, not the electricity being fed to it

Since the electric field is proportional to the voltage then the AC and DC ones will have the same average field. The AC will start a breakover a bit sooner due to the higher peak voltage, but if it breaks over the DC line won't stop arcing because the voltage never drops to zero. Its actually a lot harder to get DC to stop ionizing the air.

Chromotron t1_jefqxb3 wrote on March 31, 2023 at 6:05 PM

> Is this because we are using AC

In addition to the other answer: the strongest example you will likely every see is DC: lightning.