I know what a “hot” wire is. I found out the hard way. What is the difference between a neutral and a ground wire?
Let’s start at the beginning. Three wires connect to the receptacle in your living room, where a computer with a 3-prong plug is attached. Technically speaker, these three wires are the hot wire (black), grounded wire which is commonly called the neutral (white), and the grounding wire commonly call the ground wire (bare, green, or green with yellow stripe). When your computer is running, electricity flows through the hot and the neutral. Back at the circuit breaker panel, the neutral is attached to a wire to the earth or to a water pipe going into the earth. DON’T TRY THIS-AT HOME OR ELSEWHERE. If everything is perfect, you can attach a wire from the neutral hole at the outlet to the earth and no electricity will flow. ESPECIALLY DON’T TRY THIS. In fact, if you touch the neutral and touch the earth, you should not get a shock. Creating this safe situation is a major reason for the grounded neutral. But remember, everything is rarely perfect.
