Re: VanderGraaff safety (fwd)

[brian whatcott <inet@INTELLISYS.NET>]

Folks,
I am sorry to say that publicizing the name and location of a teacher
who admits to being associated with a possible heart transient incident
is likely to be bad for his financial health. This list I believe is now
publically accessible and so is subject to casual viewing by honored
members of the law profession.

 The current path would have been shared by all his student daisy chain.
But some subjects are more susceptible than others.
It is better to ensure the current magnitude is limited in one of two ways:
1) Limit the maximal charge if the path to ground is rather low resistance
(as here)
or
2) Limit the discharge rate by ensuring the ground path is high resistance
at all accessible points.

Brian



At 07:56 1/5/99 -0800, you wrote:
> Below is a forwarded message from a non-subscriber.  I never considered
> this situation.  The person nearest the water faucet would receive the
> strongest impulse, right?
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Sat, 02 Jan 1999 17:41:28 -0500
>
> To: billb@eskimo.com
> Subject: VanderGraaff safety
>
> I've read most of your data on the generator but I experienced a small
> mishap during our gr9 science demo before xmas. I am a teacher and we
> were demonstrating the electric charges around the hair of a brave
> student.  They all wanted to try it and they joined hands in a daisy
> chain. Someone touched the water faucet and they all felt a jolt. One
> student came up tyo me and said his heart felt funny. It was racing
> like crazy and I thought it might be fibrillating.  I called home etc.
> and was very worried for him even after the heart rate went down after
> 5 minutes.  Did I do something that may have affected his health?
brian whatcott <inet@intellisys.net>
Altus OK