[ELI5] What does it mean to be “grounded” against electricity, and why does it keep you safe?
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There is two facts that we have to establish here first in terms of safety around electricity.
1. Electricity hurts you when it flows through you.
2. Electricity prefers to flow through path with least resistance. Like water, if one pipe is small and the other is big, water would flow more through the bigger pipe. In other words, electricity is lazy.
Now, according to fact 1, if there is little to no electricity flows through you, then you’re fine.
According to fact 2, electricity doesn’t flow if you have significantly higher resistance than other path.
So, usually, what we do is:
1. We provide a superbly easy way for “rogue” electricity to flow. This is usually accomplished by having the machine “grounded” (having an almost direct connection to literal ground)
2. We make ourselves as resistant as possible, via rubber-gloves and shoes, usually.
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