edit: five year old. we’re looking for something a kid can understand. don’t need full theory with every implication here, just the basic concept.
edit edit: Y’ALL ARE AMAZING!!
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From a circuit theory perspective there’s no reason they have to be separate wires, and they could just be the same wire instead. But from a safety perspective, if you designed the wiring that way, and the wire somehow got broken, then touching the outside of a metal appliance would shock you. By making them 2 separate wires, this doesn’t happen. You’d have to have several things broken at once, before things would start randomly shocking you.
The neutral is a ‘safe’, insulated path to ground. That’s it. At your panel both ground and neutral are electrically connected.
Power goes in at HOT, goes out at NEUTRAL. It can also go out on GROUND, but if that happens, something is broken (since GROUND is supposed to be connected to the outside of your device, and cou only want your power inside the devoce, not at the outside). There are devices in the junction box that see if power goes out at GROUND (which it is not supposed to) and emergency-turn off HOT to save you from getting shocked.
Three wires go to the toaster. One wire is the hot wire. It’s always full of electricity. One wire is the neutral. When the toaster switch is OFF it has no electricity. When the switch is ON it completes a circuit and now it too, is hot.
The ground wire is not connected to these wires in any way. The ground wire is connected to the body of the toaster. A fork stuck in the toaster can touch the LIVE circuit and become an electrified FORK. The fork could kill you but the electricity takes the easy way to ground, the ground.
Both wires go to the ground. The neutral and hot wires are the active circuit. The ground wire is a safety device.
It’s not the same concept al all. Neutral is needed for the circuit to work. It is basically the return path of the current. Ground is a safety feature that is a current path with a very low resistance so that will be the path current will take in case of a fault. Ground is generally needed for appliances with metal casings so that is wires inside come loose they will touch the case which will be connected to ground and ideally that will trigger a breaker or even if a breaker is not present the current will take that path instead of running through whoever touches the outer metal casing. Ground can be connected to the same terminal out of the house or can be completely different to the neutral. Neutral always comes from the provider while ground can be a few metal stakes actually put into the ground.
This may not be 100% technically accurate, but I think it’s ELI5 enough to answer the question in an understandable manner.
Think of a bathtub.
The live wire is the tap, it always has water in it.
The bathtub is the circuit, it’s where the water is used.
The neutral wire is the drain. It’s where the water is supposed to go after it’s done in the tub.
The ground is the overflow hole in the side of the tub. If the drain is broken, or if someone dumps way too much water into the tub, water can still go out the hole, instead of ruining the carpet.
Edit: For all of you asking why my bathroom has carpet, [click here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/fcfikt/people_that_have_a_carpeted_bathroom_why/)
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think of the neutral as a sink drain and the ground as a floor drain.
they both collect water after it has been used, but one is the default path that collects the majority of the water and the other is to catch accidental spills.
edit: this example works best in a laundry room since most washrooms don’t have a floor drain.
Neutral is supposed to carry electricity.
Ground only Carries electricity when a problem occurs.
If only one person reads and remembers this, it was worth it.
It is a common misconception that there is no current flowing through the neutral wire.
Your phase is always able to deliver current, regardless to where it ends, can be your lamp or tv, your any human or animal that touches it.
When you close the circuit, e.g. turn on the lamp, current will travel through both phase and neutral wires.
The Ground, actually called PE, protective earth, will connect e.g. the metal casing of a lamp to earth. If now for any chance phase or neutral are connected to the case, it would electrocute you if you touch it. If PE is connected, most, not all, of the current will choose the way better conductor aka the ground wire, leaving only “safe” amounts taking the route through your body. In addition, there are different ways to detect that leaking current you therefore cut off power. Some of which may use PE. The most common (in europe at least) is FI-Switches, however, they do not use/need PE.
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