Title, really. I recently had to reverse the polarity of a badly installed receptacle. I read that the current will work either way but I could shock myself on the light bulb socket, for instance, if the receptacle has its hot and neutral reversed. But why any of this matters when the current is constantly changing direction anyway? Why is the neutral “safe” ?
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Voltage is a difference, like height. When you measure how tall you are, you start at the bottom of your feet, and go to the top of your head. Only having a hot is like only measuring from the top of your head: there’s nothing to measure it from, so there’s no height.
This is also why birds can land on a power line and not get shocked. When they touch the line, there’s no difference between them and the line for current to pass through, so they’re just at the same voltage as the line. However, if they were to also be touching something connected to ground (or another line), then there would be a difference in voltage which would allow current to pass through them and they’d be shocked.
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