Haven’t you always wanted to know which one hurts more (AC or DC)? You don’t have to guess anymore:

Again, don’t try to shock yourselves at home.

Through all my years of being shocked, I somehow came to the understanding that AC (Alternating Current) hurts more than DC (Direct Current). Then somebody, which I don’t remember who, told me that the body has capacitive properties and lets the AC electricity through better. I don’t know how true that statement is, but from experience it somehow makes sense. If you hold on to a 50V DC voltage with dry hands, you won’t feel it as I experienced. But as soon as you switch the same voltage on and off at high speeds, such as 60Hz, it will shock you badly.

What I said in the video is true: if you want to feel the electricity pain, just get a 9V battery and put it on your tongue for a short period of time. Don’t worry, that’s harmless. But don’t go any higher in voltage.

A funny story: telephone lines carry around 48V of DC when not loaded. Once, we had moved into a brand new apartment and the phone lines where not connected. I was going through the phone box to find our line that was supposed to be live and couldn’t find it. One guy came in and said I’ll find it for you, and started putting those phone line pairs on his tongue. Then when he received a huge shock, he said: “Here is your line” and I said thanks! I must be ashamed of myself that I can’t take it more than 12 volts!

Now as I show in my video, the AC seems to hurt at RMS levels half of the DC. But you should know that RMS means the effective AC voltage, meaning that from power consumption point of view an AC signal with specific RMS value is equal to the same value DC signal. But the actual peak of the AC voltage is the RMS value times 1.41. So a 6.5V RMS means that it is oscillating around 0V with 9.16V peaks in a sine wave form.

I have been shocked with 220V AC, 50Hz back in Iran, and also with 110V AC, 60Hz in Canada, and I should say they both hurt equally bad. I expected the 220V to hurt twice the 110V, but it didn’t feel that different. Either my pain sensor was saturated on both and didn’t feel the difference, or the 10Hz extra of the 110V compensates for its lower level.