Vsauce, I’m Jake and a wild Pokémon appeared and is out to get me. Did you hear that? Quick,
hide behind the bar! Is it gone? In previous episodes we’ve exposed some Pokémon that
deadly Pokémon: Magikarp, Magcargo, Blastoise and Victreebel. But this Pokémon is a whole different
breed...not just because of it’s type but because it is the most popular
Pokémon in the world. Pokémon #25...Pikachu.
Pikachu has small electric sacs on its cheeks. If threatened, it looses electric charges
from the sacs.
Those electrical sacs are found in the red dots on...actually, here let me take off one
of my slippers - are found in the red dots on Pikachu’s adorably deadly little face
and behind those dots are the source of its shocking abilities. When a creature, an animal,
is able to generate electricity it’s called bioelectrogenesis. Bio electro genesis it's a fantastic word and is more common than
you’d think
Electric eels, electric catfish, and electric rays are all fish that can create electric
shocks to stun or kill their prey. In fact, the electric catfish can generate enough electricity
to power a computer.. Inside their fishy bodies they all have an electric organ that functions
like a battery. Within the organ are electrocytes, thousands of round flat cells that are stacked
on top of each other and each one can produce .15 volts. It is thought that this stack of
cells inspired the very first electrical battery, the Voltaic Pile invented by Alessandro Volta.
But some animals use electricity for more than just attacking. the platypus has about
40,000 electroreceptors on its bill and since all animals produce electric fields because
of the activity of their nerves and muscles, it is able to detect where its food is hiding.
It is like an electrical sixth sense, and sharks have it too, most notably in Hammerheads
that sway their large heads back and forth searching for electrical fields.
But lets go back to the electric eel. It can produce electric shocks up to 860 volts which
according to the National Electric Code, would put it in High Voltage range. It’s Pretty
crazy to think that an animal can generate that kind of power but then there’s Pikachu
who can do 116 times that with the move Thunderbolt or it’s Japanese name 100,000 volts. (music
raises and slow push into Jake’s face). Which actually isn’t that deadly.
Here is someone being hit with a 3.5 million volt stun gun. And here’s a 100,000 volt
TASER. Enough to temporarily paralyze. Quick side note: if you had to guess what would
you think the acronym TASER stands for? I’ll give you a minutes. Times up! If you said Thomas A. Swift’s
Electric Rifle then you are correct. The inventor of the TASER, Jack Cover, named it after a
Tom Swift book where Tom invents an electric rifle capable of firing bolts of electricity.
So Pikachu is kind of like a living, breathing TASER.
So why does being hit with 100s of thousand or millions of volts generally not kill you?
Well, it isn’t the voltage that is deadly, it is the current, the amps. Tasers and stun
guns have a lower amperage so they can stop you in your tracks but not stop you from being
alive, generally. It only takes 7 milliamps directly to the heart to stop it from working.
You could apply a 9 volt battery to the heart for the same effect. Luckily we have things
like flesh and muscle and fat to protect us from that...however it only takes .1 amp for
electricity to be lethal so just how many amps does Pikachu have?
Using Ohm’s Law we can figure it out. Ohm’s Law states that I (current) = V (Voltage)
/ R (resistance). We know that Pikachu’s voltage is 100,000 and according to the National
Institute for Occupational Safety and Health a dry human body has a resistance of 100,000
Ohms. That gives us 1 amp, 10 times the lethal amount. Pika’s Vault Tackle would generate
even more so between that and Thunderbolt you’d definitely be electrocuted.
Electrocuted is an interesting word - it is actually a combination of two words, Electrical
Execution, which literally means to kill someone with electricity, so If someone tells you
they were electrocuted, they are either a ghost or a zombie. What they really mean is
that they were shocked.
Just like I was shocked to discover this next bit of information. Pikachu and lightening
go hand in hand, when a group of Pikachu get together they can cause lightning storms.
And a bolt of lightening is terrifyingly powerful and hot. A lightning bolt can have anywhere
from 100 million to 1 billion volts and be 53,540F, 5 times as hot as the surface of
the Sun (5,778K). When struck by lightning the extreme change of temperature can create
a violent reaction causing whatever rain and sweat is on your body to explode. And that
explosion of moisture can rip off your clothes, literally knocking your socks off.
It is estimated that lightning strikes the Earth 100 times every second. In the US alone
it averages to 25 million strikes a year. The likelihood of you being struck during
your lifetime is 1 in 3000. And now here comes the shocking bit, out of the people struck
by lightning...90% survive. And you also have the potential of receiving a surprisingly
cool fractal scar from the experience. But let’s say you are in that unfortunate 10%
that doesn’t make it out alive, what would happen?
The massive amount of electricity flowing through your body could cause your muscles
to contract so severely that it would shatter your bones. What will most likely kill you
though, is either the electricity entering through the top of your skull and frying your
brain or the electricity changing the contractions of your heart. When that happens, blood stops
being pumped through the body leaving your brain and other organs without oxygen. Which....which
is bad.
And when you’re someone like Ash Ketchum who is constantly around an electrically charged
Pikachu, your exposure to lightning bolts is a lot higher. But so is your exposure to
something else…
Considering that Pikachu can generate electricity, we can assume he possess an electromagnetic
field. According to studies done in the 80s and 90s, people who worked in electrical occupations
such as power station operators and phone line technicians had higher than expected
rates of leukemia, brain tumors, and male breast cancer. So there is always the possibility
that if Pikachu doesn’t electrocute you, it could slowly give you a tumor instead.
The good news is that recent studies have had mixed or inconclusive results so the jury
is still out.
However, what is certain is that Pikachu is deadly. Pika is known to have sudden and unintentionally
harmful discharges of electricity, but even that could kill you. A little static shock,
like when you rub your sock on the carpet, can be 25,000 volts and coming from Pikachu,
that’d still be enough to make you stop doing the whole living thing. If you spent
as much time around Pikachu as Ash Ketchum, you’d probably be ash. And as always, thanks
for watching. Oh no. Pika noooooooooOOooOOoooOOoooooooooo!