Science has determined that electrical jolts to the brain can restore the memory of the elderly to that of a twenty-year-old, but the effect doesn't last long. -- ARS Technica Maybe we need to have little defibrillators plugged into our brains so that we can give ourselves a jolt when we need to remember something. I know I've mentioned this in the forum before but I don't know if I made the emphasis that it had on my alertness so, since it's on-topic, I'll tell the story again, leaving out the details of how it came about. I'm a senior anyhow, so I'm allowed to repeat stories. When I was working for Champion Bag Company, I received a shock from a 440 circuit. The machine I was working on was blowing fuses and, since I wanted to finish an order before shutting it down, I got a box of fuses and was replacing them between bales of bags whenever the fuse blew. Inadvertently, I neglected to shut the power off to the box when I grabbed a blown fuse. I remember a sensation as if I was hit by a truck, and the next thing I knew, I was lying on my back a few feet from where I had been. The machine had jammed and shut itself down, which would have taken at least a few minutes, but I don't know how long I was unconscious. I was on the far end of the line of machines, so no one had noticed me. However, when I woke up I felt good. Although I was working the graveyard shift and it was about 4:00 in the morning and I hadn't much sleep the day before, I was wide awake - more alert than after a good day's sleep. And I stayed hyper-alert the rest of the shift, albeit a little afraid to touch things.
@Ken Anderson 440 volts is well-known for it's lethal potential. In your case you were probably fortunate, but not lucky; that's the wrong term. Lethality depends in large part on how extensive the current path is through the body. top to bottm, such as hand contact conducting down through the feet, which passes through the heart is nearly guaranteed to be lethal. One of the Maintenance guys at Penn Athletic Products openly bragged about how many times he had been "hit" by 440! I considered the guy a fool: all the men who had worked under me at Dana where I was Facilities Engineer, were strictly taught the first time "hit" will be your last, DON'T let it happen. I myself have been "hit" by 120 more times than I can remember, and close to a million volts on purpose, but that's another story. They were "Tesla volts". I cannot say anything definitive regarding the qualities of electric shock contributing to one's well-being. Frank
I can readily attest to the fact that yes, getting shocked does improve one’s memory. Why, just the other day I received a pretty good pop and low and behold I instantly remembered why I have this deep hatred for being shocked!
I don't know, two things. In ethe fifties i worked for a Class A electrical utility, Texas Electric Service Company, headquartered in Ft Worth. Becuse pay was very low compared to some other industries i took a part time job in the summers to supplement my income. I got this job at a small airport between Wichita Falls and Iowa Park, Wichita Valley Airport. It was operated by a man and wife team. Both worked at Sheppard Air Force Bace teaching AirForc cadets and Military fighter cpilots dto f Civilian small aircraft. My jobat thje airport was to mow the runways and adjunct grasses on either side for a pretty long runway. I also based up and hangered the plains in the evening before going off duty. This owner couple lived in a mobil homer, slept in one bedroom and the other bedroom contained their radio equipment. He knew I worked for the electric company full time and assummed anyone working for the electric company could do or handle anything electrical. He wanted to build a concrete block structure for his radio equipment and other priorities and he did and he asked me to wire it up for him. he said as payment, he would teach me to fly, rum me through the sae cpurse the AirForce cadets. I hesitated to tell him I didn't know how. My job at the electric company was accounting clerk. Anyway I had a rough idea how I would handle it. One of the trouble shooters at TESCO was a friend. One night while I had dispatch duty till midnight I confessed the prediciment i was in and asked if he could help me. He said you can't keep doing this. You'll either get burned bad or the company will find out and you'll be fired. But he took severalpieces of paper and drew several diagrams how it should cbe done. When the time came I jumped in. Proud og my self i was almost done. All that was left was to ktie in the my wiring job to the power line coming off the pole. I was qup on a twenty foot ladder. I had three bare wires that needded taping and make the connection to the power line. In my haste, my elbow touched the untaped wires after i had hooked up. When I came to, I was lying on my back on the concrete flooring. I kdon't know how long i was out, surely not long but my left elbow was burned and painful and my claf on my left legs burned. I don't remember my memory being any better but i did remember to go back up and tape the wires. I was there by myself and I called my trouble-shooter friendto come out and inspect my job if he could work it in to his schedule. He approved but lectured me severely. The burn he said could have ended your life. From then on I stuck to bookkeeping, more or less. The other: My roommate had a series of electric shocks as a ten to twelve year old child. It wiped out her memory and she had to learn to remember everything again. Who was who in her family, what she had learned in school. It was a terrible thing but it was medicine at that time in our history. http://www.oocities.org/sighcodog/history.html See the paragraph on electric shock sevral paragraphs down on this reference.
There is a lot of misunderstanding about "Voltage". Our household current is said to be 120 Volts AC. Some areas have 115 Volts...it depends on if the power is generated privately or from Edison sources. 120 volts represents the RMS value of the voltage. RMS stands for Root Mean Square, or to the layman, the "average" value of the voltage. The AC voltage is represented by a Sine Wave, stating the RMS value to be 120 volts. The PEAK of a sine wave is 1.4 times its RMS value, or 168 Volts, from a 120-Volt source. Thus, when you get shocked by household current, you're being subjected to the 168-volt "PEAK" of the 120-volt sine wave, but this is only half the story! The sine wave goes from zero to the peak in the POSITIVE direction, then back down through zero to the peak in the NEGATIVE direction. It goes through this complete cycle in 1/60 of a second. Since our power line frequency is 60 Hz, or 60 cycles per second, a single sine wave lasts for 1/60 of second, during which the voltage swings from positive 168 volts to negative 168 volts, or a Peak-to Peak voltage of 336 Volts, which is what you feel when you get shocked by your 120-volt household current! If you don't believe this, ask Frank! Hal (BSEE degree conferred in 1960, from California State University at Long Beach)
@Hal Pollner Finally? An explanation for your background in electricity! Hows about we consider that the Power delivered is represented by the Area under the sine curve? Thus, that portion ABOVE the zero-line, or X-axis, is Positive Power, while that below it is "Negative" power: Why do they not cancel out to zero, hmmm? Frank
The household current here in the UK is 240 volts... believe me, you feel that when you get a shock... !!!
I know it makes me remember every expletive I ever knew. Just the static electricity in our house in wintertime makes me very verbal.
You have piqued my curiosity Ken. There is a Memory Care Unit here where I am living and I am going to check with them and see if they do anything with electrical jolts.
@Hal Pollner I'll buy that. We were instructed that it was because "negative power" was meaningless. Now, what about that PM? This stuff is publicly wasteful of their time, no? Frank