Electricity (To kill people)

[Aspiring Writer]

This has officially turned into a series of new posts. I swear the mods are going to look at this and be confused about what to do. Especially this one about killing people.

So, topic of the day... how much electricity (What's the measurement for this, voltage, watts, current, amps, I'm still confused about this.) to kill a person INSTANTLY. I need instantaneous death. And once that is figured out, what effects would this have if it just appeared in your hand, like how far could this travel? Because this should arc toward the nearest object, so whats the range, perse, of this, and is there actually a range or will it just, like, go into the ground, if you could not tell, I am very confused by this stuff still. Also, assume the electricity will not register you for how far it will travel.

[Condensation she/her]

Is this one that you could just look up?

[Aspiring Writer]

41 minutes ago, Condensation said:

Is this one that you could just look up?

Trying and failing to get coherent answers. Electricity is confusing.

[Frustration]

The human body is not very conductive, but it only takes like(I forget the exact number) 0.1 amps to stop the heart. if it only happened to the hand? I don't know.

[+Krox he/him]

This is a tough nut to crack as it isn't really a straight forward answer.

46 minutes ago, Frustration said:

The human body is not very conductive, but it only takes like(I forget the exact number) 0.1 amps to stop the heart. if it only happened to the hand? I don't know.

If you get the current through the heart and interrupt the cardiac rythm you'll cause cardiac arrest and potentially death - but that is a very unreliable way to kill someone!
You got the number right it seems!

If you went high voltage high amps you would fry someone, as @Frustration says; the body isn't very conductive and will soak up alot of the energy.

People survive having been struck by lightning at insane amp and voltage, but you will die sticking two cables into the socket in your home (holding both parts) which is only a few hundret amps and usually around 240V.

To be honest, I don't have any answer here and request someone with more knowledge of physiology to answer!
This page seemed fairly alright however: https://www.asc.ohio-state.edu/physics/p616/safety/fatal_current.html

[Bearer of all agonies he/him]

Well, how much electricity comes out of an outlet? If you put a fork in an outlet you could kill yourself, so you f we know how much that is, then we could know about how much electricity will kill an average human.

[Condensation she/her]

21 hours ago, Aspiring Writer said:

Trying and failing to get coherent answers. Electricity is confusing.

Okay. It's true, it is.

Also, I'm slightly worried about reading your books.

[Aspiring Writer]

2 minutes ago, Condensation said:

Okay. It's true, it is.

Also, I'm slightly worried about reading your books.

What, people capable of summoning enough electricity to kill someone in an instance is too scary? Also, don't worry, this is for a different series entirely, SotU will have other ways of giving you nightmares.

[Condensation she/her]

7 minutes ago, Aspiring Writer said:

What, people capable of summoning enough electricity to kill someone in an instance is too scary? Also, don't worry, this is for a different series entirely, SotU will have other ways of giving you nightmares.

Oh, okay. Good to know on both. I just thought you were planning to kill people. Like, a lot of them.

[Aspiring Writer]

Just now, Condensation said:

Oh, okay. Good to know on both. I just thought you were planning to kill people. Like, a lot of them.

In the books or Irl?

[Condensation she/her]

Just now, Aspiring Writer said:

In the books or Irl?

In the books. I just laughed so hard.

Also, I'm a Full Feruchemist now.

[Aspiring Writer]

1 minute ago, Condensation said:

In the books. I just laughed so hard.

Also, I'm a Full Feruchemist now.

Cool. Also, there si something in my books called the extermination war. Where entire species are genocided.

Edited November 23, 2020 by Aspiring Writer

[Condensation she/her]

Just now, Aspiring Writer said:

Cool. Also, there si something in my books called the genocide war. Where entire species are genocided.

Fun... Which book/books?

[Aspiring Writer]

Just now, Condensation said:

Fun... Which book/books?

the one you're reading

[Condensation she/her]

Just now, Aspiring Writer said:

the one you're reading

Shoot. I'll keep reading, I guess. I don't like death much, though.

[Aspiring Writer]

Just now, Condensation said:

Shoot. I'll keep reading, I guess. I don't like death much, though.

Well, unfortunately, death is everywhere in my books. Though you may not see much of it.

[Condensation she/her]

That's true, I've noticed that.

[Shard of Reading he/him]

@Aspiring Writer this isn't really related to your specific question, but my dad reads a blog by a medieval historian who writes really interesting things about basically everything. He posts new articles regularly and they might be related to things you seem to be curious about. Here's the link: https://acoup.blog/

[theTruthshaper]

AFAIK the *time* for which the electric current is flowing in the body is important. So, you can get away with a pretty low voltage as long as you can maintain it, and you don't want to send it through the air. If you do want to send it through the air, then you would need a very high voltage which would change with the range of the lightning.

An additional problem is that if you try to send lightning through the air, the lightning will simply hit the ground unless the person is closer to your hands then the ground is. You could simply let the have more control over the lightning but that would imply that there are much easier ways of killing someone with their powers then shooting lightning at them.

Oh and, lightning can't do anything to metal armors or the person inside it, unless you make it so strong that the metal heats up enough to kill the person inside.

[Aspiring Writer]

46 minutes ago, Ookla of Truthshapers said:

AFAIK the *time* for which the electric current is flowing in the body is important. So, you can get away with a pretty low voltage as long as you can maintain it, and you don't want to send it through the air. If you do want to send it through the air, then you would need a very high voltage which would change with the range of the lightning.

An additional problem is that if you try to send lightning through the air, the lightning will simply hit the ground unless the person is closer to your hands then the ground is. You could simply let the have more control over the lightning but that would imply that there are much easier ways of killing someone with their powers then shooting lightning at them.

Oh and, lightning can't do anything to metal armors or the person inside it, unless you make it so strong that the metal heats up enough to kill the person inside.

Wouldn't the person in the armor be electrocuted? The armor is touching them, and metal is very conductive. 

[theTruthshaper]

4 hours ago, Aspiring Writer said:

Wouldn't the person in the armor be electrocuted? The armor is touching them, and metal is very conductive. 

Exactly, the metal is very conductive and will conduct the electricity. You only get shocked when your body conducts electricity.

[Aspiring Writer]

6 hours ago, Ookla of Truthshapers said:

Exactly, the metal is very conductive and will conduct the electricity. You only get shocked when your body conducts electricity.

Your body is also very conductive, being mostly water. If your touching a charged piece of metal, you will get shocked.

[theTruthshaper]

10 hours ago, Aspiring Writer said:

Your body is also very conductive, being mostly water. If your touching a charged piece of metal, you will get shocked.

There is a difference between a charged piece of metal and metal which is conducting electricity into the ground. This is essentially that the charged piece is not touching the ground. If it would have been touching the ground, it would not have remained charged.

[Aspiring Writer]

1 minute ago, Ookla of Truthshapers said:

There is a difference between a charged piece of metal and metal which is conducting electricity into the ground. This is essentially that the charged piece is not touching the ground. If it would have been touching the ground, it would not have remained charged.

... okay, I think we're both confusing each other. So if a person wearing full plate armor and someone who could produce enough electricity to kill them in let's say two seconds in their hands touchs their breastplate and shocks them, would the person in the armor not die?

[theTruthshaper]

Just now, Aspiring Writer said:

... okay, I think we're both confusing each other. So if a person wearing full plate armor and someone who could produce enough electricity to kill them in let's say two seconds in their hands touchs their breastplate and shocks them, would the person in the armor not die?

Nope. Unless the armor was not touching the ground. As long as there is a continuous line of metal from the breast plate to the ground, the person in the armor would practically feel nothing except heat.