I found something on reddit about this. Basically it goes like this:
If there is a broken live electrical post falling down on your vicinity, you need to hop up and keep your feet close together instead of walking.
The explanation for this is that if your feet are far apart, there’s a difference in potential between your feet. How does this work?
I really don’t understand what the internet says and maybe someone could get me the answer if it’s eli5’ed to me. Thanks reddit!
In: Physics
If I place a ball on a tabletop and give it a shove, it’ll roll off the edge and fall to the floor. If I do the same thing but put another table of the same height right next to the original, the ball rolls onto the next table and doesn’t change height (it doesn’t fall anywhere).
Electricity does the same thing: it wants to move from high potential (on top of the table) to low potential (the floor). It doesn’t matter how high the table top is or how low the floor is as one as one is higher than the other. The bigger the difference (really tall table) the more energy/speed the ball gets as it falls. Similarly, the higher the potential difference you see, the bigger shock it can give. A 9 volt battery can tingle your tongue because the potential difference between the terminals is only 9 volt. A wall socket has a potential difference of 120 volts, which’ll turn your tongue into a well-done steak, because it’s metaphorical table is now as high as the Space Needle.
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