Can nine volts of electricity kill you?

Question

Simple as that. Can nine volts of electricity kill you.

Answer 1

Yes if there is enough current with it.

Think, a car battery is only 12 volts, but when you start your car, you can draw up to and over 300 amps of current to the starter motor.

Indeed, 9 volts can kill you providing there is enough current.

Answer 2

There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about electricity around here.

Nine volts applied to your skin cannot kill you. Period. Same goes for a 12-volt car battery.

There's a lot of talk about "It's the CURRENT that kills you." First of all, this is nonsense. It's actually the POWER (Watts) that kill you. Power is the product of current and voltage.

So, could a 9-volt battery kill you if you "ramp up" the current? Yes, except there's no way to ramp it up. That's because there's a relationship between current and resistance; high resistance IMPLIES low current:

current = voltage/resistance.

Since the resistance of your body is fairly high, 9 volts (or 12) simply CAN'T PRODUCE the current necessary for a lot of watts.

To put it another way: suppose you had a 9 volt battery that was delivering a ton of current (say 100 amps) through a circuit. This could only happen if the resistance in the circuit is very low. Now suppose you very bravely inserted YOURSELF into the circuit. What would happen is that the current would IMMEDIATELY DROP to non-lethal levels, because of the high electrical resistance of your body. No death.

To put it yet another way: another formula for power (which can be derived from the above two) is:

Power = volts²/resistance

THIS is what kills you. low volts and high resistance mean low power, so no death.

Answer 3

No it wont. The reason why the voltage in the wall socket is set at 110 is because they felt anything above that can kill you.
Please remember that it is the current that kills you. A twelve volt heavy duty battery can kill you because of the current and not the voltage.

Answer 4

yes, its not the voltage of a current that kills you, but the current itself (the ampere)

Voltage = Ampere * Resistance (kiloohm)

if the voltage is nine, the ampere is 9000 and the resistance 1/1000 of a kiloohm. you would surely die.

where as with 50000volt running through something with a reisstance of 1000000ohm would leave you alive. as the current would be 0,05 ampere.

Answer 5

Not through your skin. The resistance of your body is too high.

Maybe if the voltage was applied directly to your heart - it doesn't take much current to interfere with your heart rhythm.

Answer 6

No, the resistance of body prevents enough current from flowing.

Answer 7

Voltage cannot kill but amperage can!