You have to keep in mind that the resistance from one foot to your other is going to be less than dry earth between your strides. This means if you are walking toward a downed power line, you may inadvertently walk within its path to its ground and the voltage could actually travel through you.
It is the first time i hear about it and i have never thought of it, yet it makes total sense and could make the difference between life and death in a storm damaged area.
"you're qualified for this position if, and only if, you can answer a useless question with only a rudimentary understanding of the subject and no critical thought"
Oi! As an engineer I worked damn hard to trap that magic smoke in the machine only for you to let it out and try perfectly good components. Treat your machines with respect, they're getting smarter by the day and they're forgetting less and less!
In static electric fields, sure. But the real world has rapidly changing electric fields, and mapping concepts like voltage or resistance to a time dimension starts to require imaginary numbers (and the complex analogue to resistance goes by a different name of impedance). And once you're modeling electricity through those concepts, you can have high current in a particular moment in time where the voltage might not be high. Or where the implied voltage is very high but was actually more of an effect than a cause.
In other words, if you're simply talking about "resistance," you're already in the wrong domain to be analyzing electrical safety properly.
Its the "power" that kills you. Power depends on you as well as voltage.(Your resistance determine the current and time period of current flow also matters)
From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh, it disgusted me. I craved the strength and certainty of steel. I aspired to the purity of the Blessed Machine. Your kind cling to your flesh, as though it will not decay and fail you. One day the crude biomass you call a temple will wither, and you will beg my kind to save you. But I am already saved, for the Machine is immortal…
It is still the path of least resistance but it created it itself. It ionizes the air creating a channel for it and then makes the leap, creating a conductive conduit of plasma/ions, as air currents move that around the path of least resistance can get progressively more nuts because there's still a path through the ionized air.
The problem I have with it is that it gives a false sense of security and how the world works. Most people think lightning rods attract the lightning and direct it into the ground because of this. 1/3 of the world has 220v and 110v connected directly into their showerhead without any idea why they don't die from it.
From what I've seen, nothing will make a bunch of linemen hit the deck like the sound of high voltage switchgear opening when they weren't expecting it.
YOUR PUNY AIR CANNOT CONTAIN ME MORTALS, YOU MUST CONSTRUCT ME GREAT PILONS IN VAST SWITCH YARDS TO APPEASE ME!
(Angle grinder sounds)
Wait... Is that a copper bus bar and a pipe? PATHETIC! NO BUS BAR IN A PIPE CAN MATCH MY ELECTRIC FIELD STRENGTH, I WILL FLASHOVER THE MOMENT YOU ENERGISE -
(Hissing sound of a gas filling a pressure vessel)
What are you doing? WAIT, IS THAT SF6?! NOOOOOOO YOU CAN'T JUST SMOOTHER ME IN AN INERT GAS WITH A HIGHER DIELECTRIC STRENGTH, I HAVE RIGHTS! NOOOOOOoooooo
In typical conditions, an electrical arc forms when the electric field strength exceeds the dielectric strength of the medium (like air). In a vacuum, there is no medium to ionize, which theoretically makes it difficult for an arc to form. However, electricity can still arc in a vacuum under certain conditions, such as when high voltages are involved or when the electrodes are extremely close together.