[ELI5] What does it mean to be “grounded” against electricity, and why does it keep you safe?
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“Ground” is a sometimes misleading term. It can mean “earth ground”, or the electrical potential of the literal ground under our feet. It can also mean “the negative terminal of this circuit”, which may or may not be at or near the same potential as earth ground.
One (very limited and kind of poor, but works for this) analogy might be to think of it as water in multiple tanks. If the water level in the “earth” tank is low, and you connect it to another tank, whose level is higher, then water flows from the tank with the higher level to the “earth” tank. But if the “earth” tank is at or close to the level of the other one, little or no water flows.
To be truly “safe” from electrical shock, you need to never be part of the path that current wants to take- or, to reference the above example, you don’t want to be the pipe between the tanks.
Actually being grounded- meaning, your body is at the same potential as earth and there’s a conductive path through you to earth- might actually make you *less* safe, because electricity could travel through your body.
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