Wearing rubber soled shoes or not lifting your feet to avoid electrocution. Is the electricity not still in your body?

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Wearing rubber soled shoes or not lifting your feet to avoid electrocution. Is the electricity not still in your body?

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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.

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