Friday 19 August 2016

It's the volts that jolts but it's the mills that kills....so what?!


Many years ago when an electrician was installing a new distribution box in my home, he said:

"It's the volts that jolts but it's the mills that kills."

I remember it well because shortly after making the statement he got an electric shock, which fortunately wasn't serious.  High voltage without the ability to deliver high current is normally not a killer.  In the case of the electrician, however, he was lucky because 240 volts from a mains electricity source, which is capable of delivering many amps, thousands of milliamps or 'mills', can cause serious injury and indeed has been known to kill.  Compare that with the 'belt' that I got yesterday when I closed the door on my car, after my teeshirt had rubbed against the seat upholstery causing a static electric discharge of possibly several kilovolts but from a high resistance source capable of delivering a minuscule amount of current.  In that case I experienced a jolt but the consequence was harmless.  So it's volts times amps, which happens to equal power, which determines the lethality of the jolt.

In the military world, there's another well-known saying:

"Threat equals intent times capability."

So a hostile state might hate you vehemently but without the military capability to put their words into action, they do not pose a threat.  Likewise, a neighbouring country might possess formidable weaponry but have no desire to use it against you, in which case the threat to you is minimal.  "Intent" is analogous to "volts", "capability" is analogous to "mills".

There are many other electrical power analogies within life's journeys.  How many people have we met in our lives who are all words (volts) but no action (mills), or conversely have no intention to introduce positive changes (volts) despite having the capability (mills)?  A few prominent politicians spring to mind!  But whilst there might be a degree of self-satisfaction each time we spot an occurrence of human behaviour that follows a very simple and demonstrable relationship, I don't believe it furthers the understanding of the complexities of life.  Indeed, breaking down relationships into manageable chunks, which might follow simple but obvious rules, can, in my opinion, lead to a false sense of security and ignorance.

The economics discipline is full of simple rules that are used in different ways to explain and try to introduce an element of certainty into a chaotic world.  Even the simple laws of supply and demand have been subjected to much criticism by eminent economists who can provide cases where the expected relationships between supply, demand and price do not hold.  Indeed, many would argue that economics per se is case-based rather than rule-based.

It is a rule that Power in Watts = Voltage in Volts x Current in Amps, although there are some assumptions underpinning that statement.  That said, in some cases, the volts will jolt and the mills will kill.  The electrician who installed my distribution box was very lucky because although there were enough mills to kill him, they didn't!

So beware of any physical rule or law that purports to apply to and provide some sort of certainty to societal behaviour.  The perception of certainty kills wisdom!