Isn’t that the whole point of AC?
In: Engineering
Because one is hot, and the other is neutral. The hot swings from high positive voltage, to high negative voltage. The neutral just stays neutral, 0V.
You can touch the neutral and nothing will happen. You touch the hot, you get zapped. The switch that turns a device one or off cuts the hot off right away, and doesn’t with the neutral. This makes it safer. Some small, particularly non metal devices, don’t care. They have prongs the same size. Like a phone charger. You could shave the prong of a polarized plug to fit in the other way, and it will work just fine. It’s just slightly less safe if something goes wrong.
One side is hot and the other is neutral. It is safe to touch the neutral side, but not the hot side. By polarizing the plug, the hot lead is routed in a way to lessen the possibility of a short or shock, but you are correct in that the device will generally work equally well either way. Just one way is safer than the other.
While things will still *work* if the electricity goes backwards through an appliance, it is still *less safe*. The “neutral” wire is designed to have the same voltage as “ground”, so some electrical appliances have the neutral wire more exposed to accidental contact.
I don’t know where you’re from and a quick Google search didn’t help me find an outlet with different size holes but it’s true that AC doesn’t care about the orientation. The only difference is ground which can only go to a specific hole in the outlet.
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