🚤 🦈 🪫

'Everything you said was crazy': Trump's latest shark rant leaves Morning Joe flooredhttps://t.co/2Yb7jna8Ei

— Raw Story (@RawStory) June 24, 2024

"You know, I have an, I had an uncle who was a great professor at MIT for many years, long, I think the longest tenure ever," Trump continued. "Very smart, had three different degrees and you know, so I have an aptitude for things. You know, there is such a thing as an aptitude. I said, ‘Well, what would happen if this boat is so heavy and started to sink and you’re on the top of the boat? Do you get electrocuted or not? In other words, the boat is going down and you’re on the top, will the electric currents flow through the water and wipe you out, and let’s say there's a shark about 10 yards over there. Would I have to immediately abandon or could I ride the electric down?’ And he said, ‘Sir, nobody’s ever asked us that question. But sir, I don't know.'" 

"I said I want to know because I guarantee one thing," Trump added. "I don't care what happens, I'm staying with the electric. I'm not getting over with the shark. So I tell that story, it's just fun. But the fake news, they go, he told this crazy story with electric – it's actually not crazy. It's sort of a smart story, right?" 

The "Morning Joe" host disagreed. 

"Donald, it's crazy," Scarborough said, shaking his head and laughing. "Everything you said there was crazy. I have seen little lifeboats over the last week with electric engines on them. They are not too heavy, they are not too heavy. They may be too expensive right now, but they are not too heavy, and shocking – nobody has asked the question because it's just not that smart of a question."

Now it’s become a “Sir” story. And, it’s not a “smart question.” Google is your friend:

Here is one piece of the answer: Salt water is an excellent conductor of electricity - much better than the human body. Therefore, electricity will flow through the salt water and not the human body in such a circumstance. This is why electrical accidents due to faulty wiring on a dock is not a big issue in salt water environments, but is a big issue in fresh water environments. I do not know if the risk of electrical shock is high in fresh water sinkings. But it is unlikely to be a risk in salt water.

Or you can take a direct answer, where someone responded to Trump’s idiotic hypothetical:

If you drop a big battery into the water at the beach, for example, it doesn’t immediately electrocute every fish in the whole ocean. Fundamentally, when submerged, the electrical current wants to flow from one terminal of the battery to the other. It will take the easiest possible path through the water to do so. That’ll usually be the shortest possible distance from one terminal to the other. If you’re in the water a few feet away, the electrons aren’t going to take a hike out of the battery’s negative terminal, come and zap you, and then go back to the positive terminal. They’re going to take—quite literally—the path of least resistance.

And there’s the phenomenon of “electric shock drowning “:

50 to 1,000 times more conductive than fresh water. The conductivity of the human body when wet lies between the two, but is much closer to saltwater than fresh. In saltwater, the human body only slows electricity down, so most of it will go around a swimmer on its way back to ground unless the swimmer grabs hold of something — like a propeller or a swim ladder — that's electrified. In fresh water, the current gets "stuck" trying to return to its source and generates voltage gradients that will take a shortcut through the human body. A voltage gradient of just 2 volts AC per foot in fresh water can deliver sufficient current to kill a swimmer who bridges it. Many areas on watersheds and rivers may be salty, brackish, or fresh depending upon rainfall or tidal movements. If you boat in these areas, treat the water as if it were fresh just to be on the safe side. 

Why alternating current and not direct current (DC)? The cycling nature of alternating current disrupts the tiny electrical signals used by our nerves and muscles far more than the straight flow of electrons in direct current. "It would require about 6 to 8 volts DC per foot to be dangerous," Rifkin said, or three to four times as much voltage gradient as with AC. "Regardless of the type of voltage, the larger the voltage, the larger the gradient over the same distance." There have been no recorded ESD fatalities from 12-volt DC even in fresh water because there is less chance of the higher voltage gradient necessary developing with DC's lower voltages.

Just to be clear, batteries are DC, not AC. AC comes from power lines.

Google is your friend. Trump is an idiot.