Subscribe / Renew |
|
Contact Us |
|
► Subscribe to our Free Weekly Newsletter |
home | Welcome, sign in or click here to subscribe. | login |
October 3, 2014
Q. How is it that a bird can rest safely on a 500,000-volt power line?
A. The usual answer is that the bird's body does not “complete” an electrical circuit between two different voltages (two different power lines, or a power line and the ground), so no current flows through it. But after taking a nuanced look at the electrocution-avoidance exploits of birds, physicist Jose Redinz, writing in the American Journal of Physics, concluded that they actually do experience electrical current flows.
. . .
Previous columns: