How come an electric heater device, like an oven, only burns but not electrocute?
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* The heating elements are coated in an insulating material.
* From the outside it does look like just a big metal coil but there is actually a coating on it that does a very good job of preventing current from traveling anywhere else.
* This is impressive since the whole point of the coil is to resist current and thus get really really hot.
In electrical devices, you have electrons trying to get from point A to B. This is current. They need potential to do this, like water falling downhill towards the ocean, this is voltage. Along the way there, there are things that slow down the current and basically produce a friction that slows down the electrons, this produces heat and is known as resistance. The electrons are always in the wire because they don’t have any other options. All electronics get hot, but toasters, ovens etc are designed to use this heat by slowing the electrons through a BIG resistor making lots of heat. If there is a break in the wire, and you give the electrons a better way of going to the ground than the original, then you get shocked because now YOU are the wire. Humans don’t make very good wires, we have tons of resistance so we get burned in the process.
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