Why didn't the fuse blow?

you dont watch many then :-) Hollywood always ramp it up past reality, gun shot to petrol tank on cars and they explode, people being blown off there feet by a gun shot ETC most westerns are like that

I was watching a Taggart last night where a guy was trying to kill his wife by dropping an electric fire in the bath. Common TV plot.

Could someone explain in words of one syllable why it wouldn't kill you if that happened?

Seems dangerous to me, don't think I'll try it.

It occurs to me it might be a plot line influenced by America. Would it be fatal with their electrickery system, which seems a trifle flaky to me?

well that depends on the muzzle velocity and calibre. A high velocity round tends to go right through I believe, but a heavy 45 slug at subsonic has a huge momentum and may not punch through, and easily knock someone off their feet

Id be happier if the good guys didn't always get shot, manage to stagger to their feet with what ought to be massive trauma, carry on fighting without apparently fainting from shock or bloodloss, and then pull the bullet out with their teeth and sew themselves up afterwards, with nothing more than on set cold tea as anaesthetic. And then shag the leading lady the next day.

most westerns are like that

no hand gun bullet will knock a person right off their feet "Newtons Law" sees to that "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." the shooter would be subject to the same force as the person being shot, even if you had a bullet proof vest that stopped the bullet dead the mass of a bullet against the mass of a body is vastly different

and I am with you on this one the exit wound aint going to be one little hole its going to be larger than the entry (unless its a shotgun)and bloody messy

Not that simple as that there are a load of distributed resistance's in that bath and the body, depends on what currents are flowing and where to.

Or the RCD would just trip;)...

never said it was simple just put it this way you would not catch me trying it out , I would be quite happy to be in a faraday cage and have the cage hit by lighting

But if your system had fuse wire instead of trips & RCD's ?

Because these days the bath is plastic and so is the waste pipe, and he wasn't touching equipotential bonded taps.

Right So it is not possible for one man to knock another of his feet with e.g. a good punch to the jaw?

Plenty of anecdotes about people falling over backwards firing handguns ...even a shot gun has a hell of a kick.

Colt 45 is about 1/2oz bullet with muzzle velocity around 800fps according to Wiki.

so that 400 feet oz/sec momentum, or what? 25 feet pound per second.

So a one pound object travelling at 15mph. I agree that isn't quite being in a car crash, but its not trivial either.

With hypersonic ammunition momentum is up to 4 times that..~Like being hit in the chest by a small dog running flat out.

Depends on the ammo. If it keeps its shape its not a lot different.Its the stuff that dum-dums that leaves a plate sized exit hole.

The fact is people used to be killed by electric fires falling into baths, in the days of metal baths and no RCDs.

It probably was not a 100% guarantee, but enough stories were in te papers for it to become a viable plot line.

totally different a fist is still connected to 180LB of person

but not all the energy from the cartridge is transposed to the bullet

watch "mythbusters" they did this to death with a pigs body and a crash test dummy on a rig that was balanced all they did was fell off the rig even with a 50 cal bullet that went through a 1/2 plate

I've just thought of a good reason not to fit quarter-turn long handle taps to control the hot water with your feet.... :) R.

Then the outcome wouldn't have been so favourable;(..

Still if the water was not that contaminated might not have been so bad considering that pure water isn't that good a conductor;!..

Not if they are both standing the same way. When you throw a punch you lean. If they also lean you won't be able to knock them.

So they may lose their balance and fall over, not the same as being knocked to the ground or even through a window as in many films.

M16s leave a big hole without dum-dums.

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "dennis@home" saying something like:

They tumble, though. I recall Colt (in the Vietnam era) experimented with a double bullet cartridge to compensate for the crap-poor marksmanship of the average grunt. Didn't last though - I think it simply didn't have enough knock down power if only one bullet of the pair hit the enemy.