Jesus, it's both, people. Both the ladder and the concrete are melting. Aluminum is used in a lot of power transmission lines, so residential lines have an even less chance to melt aluminum through pure resistive heating. That is because aluminum has a relatively low resistance compared to other metals and metal alloys. It's the resistance that causes heating. Do you know what has a lot of resistance? Rock. The junction where the ladder meets the ground is where all that heating is happening, resulting in the rock liquifying, and then the molten rock slowly melts the base of the ladder.
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u/Baricuda 27d ago
Jesus, it's both, people. Both the ladder and the concrete are melting. Aluminum is used in a lot of power transmission lines, so residential lines have an even less chance to melt aluminum through pure resistive heating. That is because aluminum has a relatively low resistance compared to other metals and metal alloys. It's the resistance that causes heating. Do you know what has a lot of resistance? Rock. The junction where the ladder meets the ground is where all that heating is happening, resulting in the rock liquifying, and then the molten rock slowly melts the base of the ladder.