why does rubber shoes stop you from being electrocuted?

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why does rubber shoes stop you from being electrocuted?

In: Physics

6 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Rubber doesnt conduct electricity. For you to be electrocuted, electricity needs to be able to pass through you to the ground. Rubber shoes prevent that.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Rubber does not conduct electricity, so it acts as an insulator. The electrical current cannot reach the ground through you, so you are not a conductive path.

Anonymous 0 Comments

To add to other replies, rubber doesn’t get wet. There are a lot of other insulators but many of them can get wet which ruins their properties

Anonymous 0 Comments

For electric current to flow, there has to be a source and a sink. Always. Without exception. And without current flow, you cannot be electrocuted.

You can only get electrocuted if you are in the middle of the source and the sink. So, in theory, you’d have to be touching two wires at once. As you’ve probably learned as a child, this is not the case, touching one wire can hurt pretty bad. This is because the power plant basically rams a huge metal rod into the ground and connects that rod to the current sink. So, suddenly, the entire ground is connected to the main power’s current sink. Even though the ground is not made out of metal, it is still a surprisingly good electric conductor nonetheless.

Therefore, in order to not get electrocuted while touching a live wire, you have to insulate (“disconnect”) yourself electrically from the ground. You could do this by jumping into the air, or by putting non-conducting material between you and the ground. Rubber happens to be a very good insulator, or a very bad conductor, depending on the way you look at it.

A different method would be to touch a different current source whose sink is not connected to the ground, for instance, an “insulating transformer”. A insulating transformer is powered by the power grid, but it creates a new current source and sink which are electrically insulated from the main power grid. To the “untrained eye”, it looks like a large box that you plug into the wall with a single power socket on it.

A insulating transformer is a very common safety device for people who have to open up electrical devices that require main’s power. With the insulating transformer, they can debug the device and even touch live wires without being electrocuted as long as they don’t touch two wires at the same time.

Anonymous 0 Comments

rubber is an insulator(doesn’t conduct electricity) that also happen to have another desirable property for an insulator: its completely liquid proof, aka Cannot get Wet.

electrocution happens if an open circuit is completed hen you place yourself between the circuit and Ground causing you to close the circuit and create a path for electricity to flow that is less resistant than the current path.

although its no ideal to be touching an exposed circuit(at the very least its gonna hurt like a btch depending on the current) even on the best scenario, having rubber shoes mitigates the risk your making contact with ground, therefore not creating this path..

Anonymous 0 Comments

They don’t if you are touching something else that completes the circuit. You can where rubber shoes all day long and touch your knee against a grounded object and still get shocked.