9 Answers To Science Questions You All Had As Kids
9. Why Arent Birds Electrocuted On Powerlines?
Those weirdly 70s public service videos always warned us never to go messing around with powerlines. Don't climb up them, don't touch them and don't even think bout flying a kite near them.
So why are birds able to perch on them as though there aren't tens of thousands of volts running through them, are we all just being trolled? Is electricity actually government propaganda?
Nah. The reason birds don't get electrocuted is because there's a perfectly good wire there.
An electrical current is always trying to take the path of least resistance, and a copper wire is much easier to travel through than the body of a bird. It's like choosing whether to walk along a beautiful woodland path, or fight your way through the brambles.
If the bird was touching anything other than the wire, however, it would be a different story. Simply put, electricity wants to "flow" from areas of high voltage to low voltage. If the bird's feet are both on the wire, then there is no difference in voltage. However, if it were to stretch out and touch a wire with a different voltage, or even the ground (which has no voltage) then the current would want to flow through them, resulting in one seriously Kentucky fried bird.