What’s the difference between and electric field, and what comes out of a wall outlet? How can something be in an electric field but not be electrocuted?

Question

Google tried to explain Coulomb’s Law to me and I don’t understand.

In: 2

Answer 1

What “comes out of the wall socket” is a flow of electrons, that flow creates an electric field. So your question assumes something that isn’t true – that is, there’s no difference between what comes out of a wall socket and an electric field. An electric field is what comes out of the wall socket.

Living things are affected by electric fields in one of two ways (please correct me if there is more), either by the field interfering with electric fields within that living thing (IE. the fields that are generated as part of a human heart beat) or through the heat they generate by causing other electrons or charged particles to move.

Being electrocuted generally refers to the former (electric field affects the fields of the body, which can cause muscle contraction or heart arrhythmia), but any electrician who works on high voltage lines can tell that heat is absolutely just as dangerous (if not more so) and a powerful arc flash can get over 20,000 degrees C (hot enough to turn your skin into a gas faster than you can blink).

The strength of an electric field is inversely proportional to the square of the distance, so the field strength gets weak very quickly the further away you are. Standard construction practices keep you far enough away from electric fields, and insulate those fields, such that they can’t have any negative effect we would refer to as electrocution.