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 is actually very closely related to the similar question “if I poke a stick against a wall, how does my end know that the stick stopped?”.
Both happen because the electrons are first told to move in that direction, but soon bump into each other in a kind of traffic congestion. This actually does not happen instantaneously without any effect, in both settings there is actually a small wave of slightly more electrons/atoms that travels until it hits the stopping point (and then travels backwards):
When compared with cars, you are at the end of the traffic jam, each car leaving 1 meter to the next one. Now you close your gap. The guy before you does not like you being that close and thus moves forward a bit. Then the next one does, too, and so on. The guy at the very front however cannot move forward, and as soon as the guy behind him realizes it, they move backwards again, and so on.
However, the speed is very different between both situations: it travels with a significant fraction of the speed of light for electricity, and with the speed of sound (in the respective material) for the stick. Part of that reason is that the latter has those entire bulky atoms move, while conductivity is a bunch of tiny electrons speeding around.
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