• Eheran@lemmy.world
    4·
    6 months ago

    Is it actually dangerous for fish that are not right next to the surface? After all, salt water is a fairly good conductor (low voltage drop per distance) and fish are small (low distance), resulting in a low voltage difference across their body.

    If the fish itself is as conductive as the water, then I assume nothing at all happens.

    • Everythingispenguins@lemmy.world
      3·
      6 months ago

      So there is going to be a radius in which there are going to be decreasing levels of danger. Think like a stack of progressively small and smaller bowls. The top of the bowl is the top water and as you go from smallest to largest. The energy is going to dissipate. I think at an exponential rate if I am remembering correctly.

      It is not the resistance of a body that causes electricity to kill. All animals including humans are pretty good conductors. Remember blood basically just slightly salty water. Electricity mostly kills by stopping the heart. Heart muscle cells are very sensitive to electricity. Death occurs the millivolt range

      • Eheran@lemmy.world
        1·
        6 months ago

        There can only be an effective voltage gradient when the conductivity is different. Hence standing on one leg you do not get hurt from lightning close by (only direct hit). But I have no idea about the conductivity of fish…

        • Everythingispenguins@lemmy.world
          1·
          6 months ago

          Sorry I am having a bit of a hard time parsing this. A voltage gradient is just a measure of potential electrical energy. As far as I understand it has very little to do with electrical conductivity. Electrical conductivity is just the ability of a material to conduct electricity. It’s the other side of the coin to electrical resistance.

          Any type of potential energy is just a measure of how much stored energy there is. There is no energy being used if you’re measuring potential energy. As soon as energy is being used you get kinetic energy. So electrical potential energy would be an open circuit and electrical kinetic energy would be a measure of flow of Watts in a closed circuit.

          Standing on one leg could theoretically help protect you during a lightning strike, but it’s a terrible idea. The idea with a one-legged stand is you create an open circuit(infinite resistance). If there’s an electrical charge running through the ground it will not travel into the body because there is nowhere to go. Humans have lower resistance than the ground (in general). This means they make better conductors. So when you stand with two feet on the ground the electricity will travel up one leg and down the other because that is the path of least resistance.

          It is much safer and easier to stand with two feet touching. This creates a single point of contact just like one leg. It is more stable and allows you to crouch and rock onto the balls of your feet which is the lightning position. All of this together gives you the lowest level of contact with the ground and makes you as low as possible to the ground. Hopefully creating a situation where lightning has somewhere better to go than through your body.

          I genuinely have no idea if fish are more or less conductive than saltwater. I do know however they can be electrocuted in water very easily. Otherwise electric eels wouldn’t be electric. Also there’s this thing called electro fishing. It’s used on fish to take counts. I don’t really know if it’s used anymore it has some downsides.

          I really don’t know if you were agreeing with me disagreeing with me or just adding.

          • Eheran@lemmy.world
            1·
            6 months ago

            Standing with 2 feet, apart, looking at the lightning, the voltage both feet see is the same, so no current though the body. Turning 90°, the feet now in line with the strike location, they see the maximum voltage difference and current goes through the body.

            Think of 2 series resistors and of those 2 in parallel (as the ground before and after the person) and one that connects the 2 parallel ones in between the 2 series ones (body). – R – ,-- R – –| R | – – R --'-- R –

            Only if the 2 R top and bottom are different will current flow through the middle resistor (body).

  • Treczoks@lemmy.world
    3·
    6 months ago

    Who says this had to be fish?

    Lightning takes whatever sticks out of the water. Swimmers, ducks, surfers, boaters.

    • Everythingispenguins@lemmy.world
      3·
      6 months ago

      Yep 100%

      I am going for an image stack. It seems like you would see traffic blurs on the road at the bottom if it was a long exposure.

      I would bet that it is frames pulled from a high resolution video feed too.

      Spelling