So in England we have the ground prong so our cables are all the same, however I know in the states and other places they don’t, so how come no damage is caused if the positive and negative are the wrong way around?
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Wall outlets have AC voltage and consist of three wires: phase, neutral and protective earth. Phase and neutral carry the current that powers things, protective earth is for safety for devices built in a way that makes it necessary.
The voltage on the wire called phase moves up and down, if you were to draw it it would show a sinusoidal curve that goes as much positive as it goes positive, moving up and down 50 or 60 times per second, depending on the country. The voltage on the neutral wire, on the other hand, stays basically at 0.
Now imagine a room split in half, one half of it continuously moves up and down, while the other half is planted. If you put a camera in one of those halfs, oriented at the other half, you will see the same thing regardless of which part you put the camera in: half a room moving up and down.
That is what delivers the energy to the device: the difference between phase and neutral. And for that aspect, the difference from one to the other looks the same no matter which one is your reference. So, in general and from a merely functional point of view, it doesn’t make a difference.
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