time to go bzzzt
Thursday, 13 Mar 2025
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Anything becomes a conductor when the voltage is high enough
High voltage: I CREATE THE PATH OF LOWER RESISTANCE.
Looks like a fox praying. Do you see it?
Wrong. The air is now the wire.
I’ll make my own conductor. With blackjack and hookers.
For anyone interested this arc is probably created because of a breaker failure in one phase. The breakers are designed to quench the arc, but the disconnectors seen on the picture are not. I’ve never seen it happen myself but I’ve heard of it multiple times. You don’t want to be under the disconnector when this happens as the metal will instantly turn to liquids and gas, and guess what happens if you get this liquid all over your back.
High voltage really said, “Rules? Never heard of ’em!
It’s in its evil arc
Everything can be a wire at a high enough voltage.
Just like how everything can be a fuse at a high enough amperage.
whose death metal band logo is this?
High voltage out here playing by its own chaotic rules. Respect. ⚡🔥
As I understand it (and no doubt someone with better knowledge will correct me, because this is Reddit), the crazy path is created by the heat generated by the current flow.
Basically, the large potential difference ionises the air between the conductors. This ionised air has a lower resistance, so the current flows through it in preference to the surrounding air. The current flow then heats the air as it flows, creating plasma, which the current flows through. The plasma rises as it’s hot, and is also turbulent. Hence the constantly rising arcs with chaotic paths.
Plants meme part 2?
It’s in one of those directions
u/bot-sleuth-bot
I love how an arc like this is similar to the temperature on the surface of the sun, ~6000°C (not withstanding the corona being in the millions of degrees)
When hot enough, conductors become insulators, and insulators become conductors, and then there’s *this* shit
I worked as an electrician in the supply industry, and I am grateful that I have never seen a Jacob’s Ladder in any of my switching
Looks like Maggie Simpson.
[I’m going on an adventure!]
)
Electricity takes all paths in proportion to resistance, and yes, high voltage is exactly the same.
That arc is creating ionized plasma- which is much more conductive than the air around it, so that path is the least resistive.
Arcs at these high voltages can even sustain themselves, meaning they don’t go away until the electricity does, or the wind blows enough of the ionized particles away to break the path.
high voltage:”the wire is a suggestion”
Its realy bothering me for some reason: its curent that take path of least resistance not the voltage. Voltage makes curent flow!
high voltage is precisely the same as low voltage. in this case the ions in the air is enough of a conductor to pass through.
I witnessed an arc exactly like this when driving past a little sub station I locked eyes with an operator on site and gave him the movie tommy boy “what did you do” line
I popped it