Wearing rubber soled shoes or not lifting your feet to avoid electrocution. Is the electricity not still in your body?
In: 1
Electricity isn’t a “thing” like that. It is a property of moving electrons. If the electrons have no where to go, then they can’t move, and if they can’t move, there is no electricity. So when you prevent yourself from being grounded, you are removing the ability of the electrons to move from the some source to the ground. If they can’t move from the source to the ground then no electricity can’t pass through you.
[removed]
Electricity is not something tangible like a piece of coal. Electricity is a flow of electrons. Your body does contain electrons and electric current can flow in your body under certain circumstances. Wearing insulating soles (rubber shoes) reduces the ability of electrons to flow thru your body to the ground.
Not lifting your feet (shuffling) is recommended if you are near a downed power line conductor. If you lift your foot and take a large step, a large current can flow between your legs when you put your foot on the ground and cause damage. By taking small shuffling steps, the current flow thru your legs is smaller and less likely to cause damage.
You can compare electricity with water. The voltage is the water level, while the current (amperage) is the flow of the water. Getting insulated only allows you to get wet (your body will get just as wet as the water is deep), but there’s no current to sweep you away.
So firstly, electricity is a function of potential. Unlike water that can fill a vessel and be transported, electricity can not. (Ignoring capacitors to keep this simple.) Batteries contain chemicals which can generate this potential. Rechargeable batteries are able to reverse the reaction used and regain their ability to produce a potential.
A current is a flow of electrical potential from one point to another. As electricity will take the path of least resistance, wearing rubber shoes/boots insulates you from being a short path.
These two things combined, if you are wearing rubber boots, touch a live electrical wire, you will have an increased potential across your body but if you then let go, you are not now “charged.”
However if touch a live wire and then touch someone else that is grounded on say a metal door frame, you have now completed a circuit across yourself, the other person and the door frame. You will both receive a shock. (Don’t do this, its dangerous.)
There is a pretty funny experiment done in high schools where students will insulate themselves, hold hands while having a static charge build up on their bodies. They then touch a student that isn’t insulated, causing a small shock to everyone. ([Link](https://youtu.be/nv9oRJA4JLM))
Using the concept of insulation and controlling potential is how linemen can work on High voltage power-lines while they are energized without getting shocked.
Electricity is always in your body in many ways. You are at an undefined electrical potential and sometimes you notice it if you get a “static shock” touching something when dressed in artificial fibres on a dry day!
Being at 240v or whatever isn’t bad for you, having that 240v pushing through you is really bad. Moving electricity is really bad for you, but being at 240V or 11kV is perfectly safe as long as the electricity can’t go through you to where it wants to go (ground/earth).
Your need a potential difference and a path in order for current to ‘flow’. If you are floating and touch a power line you are now at the same potential as the line but there is no path so you are safe. As soon as you touch ground… poof.
Latest Answers