Posted by Michael N. Marcus on April 18, 2008, 4:33 am
Although practices vary around the world — and even within individual countries — in those places where the electric chair is used to carry out the death sentence, 2000 volts seems to be the right number.
When I was in the eighth grade in Sheridan, we were assigned to do “original research” projects for Anthony Accurso’s science class, and I was curious to see if it was possible to build up immunity to electric shocks. I had no expectation of being tried for murder and facing two kilovolts in the chair, but I wanted to see how much I could take.
I knew that even the puny 90 volts that rings a phone could provide a nasty jolt. On the other hand, I knew that the 12 volts that powered a doorbell was not even noticeable. I figured my limit was somewhere between 12 and 90; but perhaps with training, I might be able to go higher. I hoped to break 100.
I had heard that if you put a live frog in a pot of cool water on the stove, and then turn on the burner, the water would heat so gradually that the frog would just cook, rather than notice a sudden high heat and try to jump away.
But this story is not about heating or eating frogs.
I was curious to see if I, acting as a somewhat larger and perhaps smarter frog, could apply a gradually increasing electrical voltage to electrodes on my forehead — and remain comfortable and hopefully alive.
I attached a couple of screws with washers and nuts to a headband, and used wires to connect it to a variable transformer with a voltmeter that showed how much juice it was putting out.
I wet my forehead where the screws would touch me to decrease resistance to improve the connection, put a chart on my clipboard, and went to work.
I did not tell my parents.
I did not have an ambulance standing by.
I did not prepare my will.
I started rotating the big black knob and was surprised that I felt nothing as I passed through twenties, thirties, forties, fifties and even sixties.
But at around 70 volts something strange happened.
I still didn’t feel a shock. At most, it was a tingle.
But the tingle was accompanied by a sizzle.
The water that I had put on my forehead to improve electrical conductivity, mixed with my own perspiration, was starting to boil and bubble.
HOLY SHIT! I was cooking myself.
I remembered the frog story and quickly unplugged the transformer.
After I cooled down and wiped off, I thought up a new science experiment that could use the same equipment.
The next day I removed the wires from the headband, and attached them to two nails that I hammered through a pine board, about six inches apart.
Instead of cooking me, I then took a Hebrew National hotdog and stuck it onto the nails, cranked up the transformer to 250 volts, and in about a minute it was chow time.
I submitted a beautiful graph to Mr. Accurso showing cooking time versus temperature.
I got an “A” for my experiment, and apparently have had no lasting damage from either eating the electrocuted hotdogs or feeding the voltage into my head.
But, on the other hand, maybe people with brain damage just can’t tell if they have brain damagggggggggge.
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