When you get shocked by electricity, what cause the shock, is it the Voltage or Current?

Answer 1

Both. A strong buildup of electrical charge causes a voltage to develop. When the voltage gets high enough, you can get arcing, and if there is a voltage across a conductive surface, you get current.

If there is no current being conducted through your body, there is no electrical shock. However, without voltage, there can be no current. You can't have current without voltage.

Answer 2

Both. There needs to be an electrical circuit through your body for you to get a shock. This means you must be in contact with two things at different voltages (such as the mains and earth). Then an electric current passes through your body.
Your muscles are normally controlled by small electrical impulses from the nerves. If a larger current flows near a muscle, it goes into spasm. What you feel as an electric shock is not the electricity itself, but the muscle spasm it causes.

Answer 3

Actually, both. Electric current is the FLOW of electric charge. Voltage is the "force" that causes the flow. It is the current or flow of charge through your body that you feel as a shock, but the flow would not happen if the voltage were not there to cause the flow of charge (current)

Answer 4

Current. Its the current that passes through you that causes the damage. The relationship is, that a higher voltage will cause a higher current to flow. But voltage itself is not enough. You can safely touch an extremely high voltage line, provided you are not touching anything of a different voltage (or close to one) eg. you cound hang on a power line if you were a bat as long as you didn't touch the neutral.

Answer 5

If you get shocked you are part of a circuit that has both voltage and current.
So you're being "shocked" because you're completing a circuit.
The voltage burns you.
The current causes defibrillation of your heart.
Either can kill you, but current is deadliest because it doesn't take much.
Google Ohm's law and study the formula, I think it's v = i x r, where v is voltage, i is current, and r is resistance.

Answer 6

The voltage has to pass a certain threshold based on your body's resistance (which varies based on a number of factors, like whether or not your skin is wet, whether the wetness is from sweat or water, etc...). Once it does, your body can conduct a current.

The amount of current determines how it affects you. A few milliamps you might not even notice, but as the current gets higher and higher, the electricity does more and more damage.

Answer 7

It's the voltage that shocks you. The electrical current carries the voltage. So in essence, the answer is yes and yes. But it is not the wattage.

Answer 8

Voltage is the potential, like water behind a dam. Current is the movement of that water, the actual force as it goes from on place to the next. So voltage doesn't hurt, it's the current that does, and kills.

Answer 9

The frequency. High voltage at high frequency will pass through the body and you will never know. Nikola Tesla - the man who invented the modern world. ... Nikola Tesla has become a hot subject on the Net ... The second, The Inventions, Researches, and Writings of Nikola Tesla (1995) is a reprint of an 1893 book on Tesla's ...members.tripod.com/~earthdude1/tesla/tesla.html - Tesla gave the world ac voltage and much more. He spent his life showing that high voltage could pass through his body and light a light bulb. Don't try this at home.!!!!

Answer 10

the Current carries the Voltage so when you touch that tiny box that has a warning on it you get ZAPPED because the current allows the voltage to flow

it is like the heart the heart makes the "current"
the blood is the "voltage" that flows though you and keeps you alive

so its both