How is it that lightening is so hot but while being electrocuted people can survive and not be cooked essentially from the heat ?
In: Biology
It depends largely on how they’re struck; what path the electricity takes through the body and how much actually goes through them. If it largely is pathed away from your heart, you stand a good chance of living. And if the circuit’s just say your right arm to your right leg, there’s no reason for electricity to be flowing through anything other than the shortest path. Your right arm and leg and torso would have some bad burns, but nothing critical would be roasted. Additionally, many strikes are secondary, like if you’re touching a metal structure while it gets struck; then you just get a nasty shock.
Also, on the other side of physics, water has a high thermal capacity; it takes a lot of heat energy to heat it up 1C. Air has a low thermal capacity. If a lightning bolt has a constant wattage, it’s going to heat up air thousands of more degrees than it’ll heat up a body of water
Best case situation is that when struck by lightning all of that intense energy and electricity is conducted around and over top of your skin rather than through your body and organs. There’s documented cases where people have a 3rd degree burn where they were struck and another one where it exited and jumped back to Earth
There is a tremendous amount of current flowing through the ground during a lightning strike, which creates a step potential. By Ohms Law, Voltage = Current X Resistance, so an immense amount of current (amps) flowing through the earth (resistance) causes a voltage differential from the strike point radiating outward. They call it step potential because there is literally a voltage difference between your feet…in the left, out the right…or however you’re oriented to the strike. Many people “hit” by lightning experienced the shock of the step potential and not the actual bolt of lightning itself.
I think the voltage dissipates as a function of the square from the strike point, meaning the farther you are away, the less likely to be hurt. Burns from high voltage, internally and externally, are very common in high voltage contact with power lines, and the Doctors will constantly monitor the victims internal organs over the first few days to make sure they weren’t cooked.
It has poor current (see Ohm’s law), e.g. it has poor heat flow. You can most definitely die from being struck by lightning, but it’s more likely to stop your heart than anything else.
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