She was in her metal cage at the time it happened. The cage has a plastic floor. She didn't bite through it in one chomp either. It looks like she took her time chewing on the copper wire. The cord went to an aquarium pump and the pump was still operating when the chewed wire was discovered.
2007-08-05 03:01:48 · 11 answers · asked by Sherri L 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Other - Science
voltage does not kill
current does
it needs to have a closed circuit to have current float and to cause harm.
this would be the case if there is sufficient contact to an earth potential while chewing on the cable.
Since there was am isolating plastic floor the electrical resistance of the floor was too high to have enough current running through.
if your rat chewed on both wires same time it would have closed a circuit within its mouth and would be dead.
actually earth potential is what you have in your second wire inside a cable, where the other has the AC voltage potential.
normally if you touch a wire a circuit is closed where the current runs from the wire through your body, through your shoes, through the carpet, through the floor, through the soil of the earth back to the generator.
As you see all these 'items' within the circuit have an electrical resistance. which can be low enough to let sufficient current run through.
It's believed that currents above 50 miliampere are dangerous and could kill.
2007-08-05 03:18:18 · answer #1 · answered by blondnirvana 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Plastic is an insulator. You have to be grounded to get electrocuted, that is, your body has to provide a direct path to the ground. The plastic floor of the cage does not conduct electricity, so it prevented the electricity from traveling through the rat and to the ground. Thus, the rat was not electrocuted. If you took away the plastic floor to the cage, I bet it would be.
2007-08-05 03:13:34 · answer #2 · answered by Mel 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
If the pump operated on a low DC voltage from an adapter plugged into the outlet, it's conceivable that the rat got a very small shock in its mouth (through saliva, for example) that wasn't strong enough to do anything but surprise or "punish" the rat.
But some of the other answers also make sense.
2007-08-05 03:19:35 · answer #3 · answered by night_train_to_memphis 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Its basic physics the cage of faraday.
The animal was on a plastic floor, plastic doesn't transfer electricity.
Electricity always wants to go to the earth, so it just chewed on the cable but the plastic prevented it from transferring the load to the ground, so it is unhurt.
2007-08-05 03:09:36 · answer #4 · answered by Xiht 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Cats hate water. I use a squirt bottle with my Siamese. It works. A friend of my moms, had a cat that chewed electrical cords...it's tounge got burned half off one day. It was never really the same in the head after that. Be careful.
2016-05-18 23:33:56 · answer #5 · answered by ? 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Well he is probably only big enough to chew one side at a time for him to get electrocuted he would have had to come in contact with both the negative and positive wires that are inside that one cable. It has nothing to do with what she was in.
2007-08-05 03:07:28 · answer #6 · answered by Vince 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Well , will it due to its resistant to electricity is too big?
So the current passes through it is just too small/
It is like the situation that a bird standing on a electric wire?
I am not sure,
2007-08-05 03:16:43 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
It happened since the cage had a plastic floor .Not extraordinary.U can't get electric shock while wearing plastic gloves or boots coz they r insulators.
2007-08-05 03:06:08 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋
Plastic..non conductor of electricity...
(lucky rat..u may as well as call her danger mouse)
2007-08-05 03:12:04 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
mel was right plus since the floor was plastic he probally would have died because he wasn't grounded
2007-08-05 05:30:28 · answer #10 · answered by srocky_24_7 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋