why are there separate neutral and ground wires for electricity when they both are connected to the same thing.
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Neutral is were the electricity is *supposed* to go.
Ground is were the electricity goes when something goes wrong.
One is where power is supposed to go, one is where power is never supposed to go. Your breaker box has a switch that stops power going anywhere, if it goes where it’s not supposed to go (because you drilled into a powerline or something). Also, it provides a convenient way for power that doesn’t go where it’s supposed to go, to go to ground without going through you. It’s a safety feature.
Neutral is where the electricity is supposed to go. Ground is where the electricity is *not* supposed to go. Since neutral and ground both lead back to the earth, which electricity would always prefer to go to, there’s no way for electricity to cross from one to the other in normal operation.
This means that it’s safe to connect exposed metal parts to *ground*, so if a hot wire accidentally makes contact with the exposed metal, causing a short circuit, the electricity will continue flowing and allow the circuit breaker to trip.
If those exposed metal parts weren’t connected to *anything*, then the electricity from the shorted hot wire would wait patiently for something (or someone) conductive to touch it and provide a path to flow through.
If those exposed metal parts were connected to *neutral*, then *any other device* functioning normally on the same circuit would feed power through the exposed metal parts, and as soon as something (or someone) conductive provided a shorter path to the earth than the neutral wire, the electricity would decide to flow through them instead.
The easiest way to explain this concept is 2 hallways that lead outside. One hallway has a bunch of doors to open and close before you get to the end, the other has no doors.
You are an electrical fault and you need to get outside quickly, which hallway do you use?
In this case, the empty hall is the ground wire, and the neutral has all the doors. The doors are “resistance” which is what every single electrical item on the circuit has, whether it be a light or fridge or YOU. Electricity always takes the path of least resistance, and in the simplest terms, you have no voltage coming OUT of the ground wire unless it contacts a live wire, so in the event that happens, the fault will travel down the ground wire because it has very little resistance in it.
Neutral is connected to ground on every third electric pole. Neutral is a rich ground. Ground is a poor Neutral
They are not connected to the same thing! The neutral is like a return line that goes all the way back to the power source- it completes the loop that makes your power work. The ground is a safety wire that takes any power that’s not supposed to be there and dump it into the ground so it doesn’t hurt you!
Electricity runs in a circuit like cars on a race track. Each car wants to return back to the starting/finish line as quickly as possible. Electricity wants to return back to its source with the least effort possible. So what we can do is provide it a low resistance way of doing so. In AC systems, energy comes from the hot wire, gets used up to your device, then flows back to its source (usually a local transformer) at little or no voltage. Another way to envision this is washing your car with a power washer. Water comes out at high pressure, gets used up to clean your car, then slowly rolls down the driveway to the sewer once it’s used up, where it returns to the treatment plant. In this case, the driveway is your neutral.
Ground and neutral are often the same thing. If you were to open your breaker box (not advised!), you’d see they’re usually connected together. The ground wire though is a safety measure that provides a low resistance path for flowing current. You’ll notice, at least in North America, that not every electrical device has a ground. Some plugs just have the two prongs. Devices enclosed in non-conductive materials like plastic don’t need it. Metal appliances do, however. If a wire insider were to become loose or damaged, and touched the metal casing, you could get a nasty shock if you touched it. What the ground wire does is provide a lower resistance path for the electricity to return to its source than your body. The sudden current spike on the ground will usually trip the breaker, shutting off the power. Now, you could just use the neutral wire, but there might be cases were the hot and neutral somehow get reversed. Plus it adds some redundancy.
GFCI (RCDs in Europe) circuits are also used as a similar safety measure in addition to grounding, and also work with ungrounded appliances. What they do is measure current going into the device via the hot wire. versus what’s leaving via the neutral. If they detect any imbalance, the electronics inside cut the power virtually instantaneously. They’re usually mandatory in wet environments, since water (anything that’s not pure, which is most water) conducts electricity.
Neutral= makes the device work.
Ground=makes the breaker/fuse work when something goes wrong
they are connected to the same thing “in the end”, but are implemented dfferently so one completes the action of the other.
basic protection is “ground” that allows the easiest path for electricity to escape, instead of going through you body it will takes that path. but this is unsufficient.
neutral goes through a breaker that trips if the difference between live and neutral is over a threshold. when electricity escape through ground, it creates such a difference because it is then ot going through neutral.
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