One scientist in China is challenging the current standards of 50,000 Volts, the highest threshold of static electricity a human body can endure, by using himself as the subject. Sounds insane, it might just be.
One can have such unwavering reliance on one’s idea, only if they have 50+ years of experience to their name. Chinese Academy of Engineering, in Beijing, harbors an academic known as Liu Shangshe, who seems to be one such man. South China Morning Post reported him to be an expert on electrostatic safety. In 1983, when Lui discovered the number of people who die from electric shocks each day, he switched his research to static safety.
The man has never shied away from putting himself in danger in the line of duty. Lui has suffered from serious health problems, such as his white blood cell count dropped to a half, due to his exposure to dangerous gasses. This has led to his weight become lower than average for a person of the same height.
“On the road to understanding electric static, I have never thought about giving up,” Liu Shangshe reportedly said.
However this time, Lui took it too far, when he decided to neglect the current threshold for the highest amount of static electricity that a human body can withstand, i.e. 50,000 Volts. Liu Shangshe himself was able to pass 71,000 Volts of static electricity through his body and survived, setting the new threshold.
Media reported that the controversial procedure was performed by Liu Shangshe’s assistants, where they started off at 20,000 Volts and then gradually increased the voltage in steps. The hands-on approach by the scientist also helped in testing a device to measure the static current in live tissue. Previously used in military operations by soldiers to avoid explosions, static current on people can cause the shells to spark which could be fatal.
