Like the title says what does it exactly mean when something is grounded? What does it serve for with humans and electrical system?
Also presume someone somehow gets zapped by a massive amount of energy from some source: is it safer or worse to be grounded and does it matter what we are grounded to?
In: Physics
The universe at large, or at least the parts we can see, has zero net electric charge. For every bit of positive charge somewhere, there is the same amount of negative charge somewhere.
For the most part, these charges are in the same place. Almost every atom has the same number of electrons and protons – net zero charge.
Given enough time, any charge that forms will sort of disappear into the din – any errant proton will find an errant electron and we once again have no net charge anywhere.
This is the ‘ground’. By connecting an electrical circuit to it, we can fix the voltage of that wire to be zero – the same voltage as most of the rest of the universe. In some situations, this can be a good thing, while in others it can cause electricity to flow in unwanted ways.
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