So as we know for a person to get electrocuted a circuit needs to be completed. You cannot stand on a wooden chair and get electrocuted. So when you stand on a wooden chair and touch a live wire, how does the electricity figure out that you’re standing on an insulator? Does the electricity pass through you first before failing to complete the circuit because of the wood?
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It doesn’t know anything.
You get electrocuted as electrons flow through you to get from point A to point B.
This means there needs to be two things:
1) A reason to move (electric field) which is created by the live wire.
2) Electrons capable of moving. And this is where insulators come in. Materials aren’t actually conductors **or** insulators, they’re on a range somewhere in between. Insulators are materials that strongly hold onto the electrons they have, so it takes a very big field (a good reason) for the electrons to move. In a conductor, the electrons are easily seperated, and motivated to move.
So when you are on a chair, the electrons from the chair and ground are being pulled (or pushed) by the electric field, and not budging. So nothing happens.
If you stand on a conducting surface, the electrons readily jump free and race through your body, which is generally a bad thing as they rip apart thing they slam into on the way (heat)
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