QUESTION: What would happen if you stood in a kiddie pool full of water and dropped in an electrical cord with bare wires at the pool end, and that was plugged into and active 120 Volt wall socket at the other end?
Boy is this one going “shock you” !
ANSWER: Actually, nothing would happen to you. No, really, nothing would happen to you.
Allow me to explain. If you were standing in water only, that is to say, pure water, H2O and nothing else, you would not feel a thing and you would not be harmed. Water molecules don’t have an electrical charge so they cannot exchange and move electrons
.
Pure water has a resistance to electrical flow of 18.2 million ohms per cm-cm. Simply stated, electricity has no way to pass through pure water.
So why do people get electrocuted when live current comes into contact with the water they are immersed in? It is because pure water does not exist in nature. The contaminants in our water, things like iron, calcium, chlorides, sulfates, sodium and more are all electrically charged and when dissolved in water, do a great job of allowing electricity to pass through.
Now, don’t go trying this out for yourself because even if you fill your pool with pure water, the moment that water is poured it begins to deteriorate and absorb materials that conduct electricity. But in a controlled lab setting? You would be safe and ZAP free!
