eli5 Why is touching a live wire dangerous? Doesn’t electricity take the path of least resistance? Wouldn’t your hand be a much worse conductor than a copper wire?
In: Engineering
Yeah but the copper wire isn’t offering a path to the ground at all. If there was a copper rod going from the wire into the ground right beside where your hand was, then yes the electricity would prefer the copper, which has lower resistance than your skin.
But in your scenario, your body is offering *the only available* path to ground, and it’s much better than nothing. The only other option is jumping through the air, which is a pretty good insulator. Compared to air, your body might as well be copper.
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