What will happen if a terrorist puts a current on the "ground" wire ?

Hello,

Lately I am wondering what would happen to an appartment complex or any
other building for that matter where there are many ground wires and power
outlets with ground pins and for example electrical devices with cables and
ground wires attached to them, and then a terrorists comes by and puts a
large current/voltage onto the ground wire of one of the apperments...

My question is:

What would happen to all other appertments and people touching the grounded
devices ?!?

Would they suddenly all get shocks and/or be electricuted ?!?

Or is the "earth" so strong that all current/voltage would disappear into
the earth ?!?

Or does it depend on where the current is applied and where the victims are
?

So if terrorist is on top floor, all bottom floors get electricuted ? But if
terrorists is in basement or bottom floor then top floors are safe ???

Bye,
Skybuck.

Also suppose that the "ground wire" is not "terrorist-proof" then what was
it for in the first place ???

I pretty much fail to see the usefullness of grounding wires ?

Especially for devices which are continously powered by the electrical
system/power outlets.

Perhaps the ground wire is connected to a "power-circuit-breaker" which
works as follows:

When the power on the ground wire becomes to large the
"power-circuit-breaker" detects this and breaks off the power by cutting
itself ?

So then all power is lost and thus the devices can no longer get power and
thus can no longer continue to shock anybody ?!

But another question:

Is the ground wire itself cut as well ? Or would the ground wire continue to
remain an "attack vector" of the terrorist had it's own power cells ?!?

Also what other situations could there be where a ground wire and circuit
breaker could fail to work as intended ?

Perhaps the electricity/power finds a different ground route through the
human body and the circuit breaker never kicks in ?!?

Bye,
Skybuck.

I have a few more questions about the power outlet in general:

Usually there are two wires a plus (+) and a minus (-).

Suppose I am five high in an appartment and wearing plastic shoes and socks
and so forth... I am not grounded ? (Not touching anything).

My question is as follows:

Is it safe to touch the plus (+) only (when not grounded) ?

(My bet would be: probably not since the voltage/ampere might be so high
that even shoes might be conductive ?)

Is it safe to touch the minus (-) only (when not grounded) ?

No idea... (maybe same as above but slightly less dangerous)

Same two questions but now for grounded:

Is it dangerous to touch (+) when grounded ?

Probably yes... the voltage would go through your body and into the ground.

Is it dangerous to touch (-) when grounded ?

No idea ? maybe opposite could happen ? energy from earth back into
electrical system ?! But earth probably super negative so unlikely... but
maybe some energy still in (-) so could still shock you ?

Touching + and - with different body parts or maybe even one finger is
probably definetly dangerous ! (Electricity then goes through body...)

Bye,
Skybuck.

Ok,

I found answers to my last few questions.

According to a "belgium" professor... (though I don't know if we can trust
the belgiums ! LOL ) it works like this:

Again it's all about "potential differences" like gas pressures would be my
example or his example a ball rolling off a cliff...

If the ball is on an equal plane then nothing happens no matter how low or
high that plane is... all parts are equal...

Now comes the answer to the outlets.

The ground wire is said to be "zero" or "grounded" but this is pretty
arbitrary...

The other two pools are given a different potential in respect/relation to
the zero/ground/central wire.

So the ground wire could be zero or perhaps even something else.

So the - wire could be -120 volts or simply 0 as well.

So the + wire could be +120 volts or simply 240 volts as well.

So sometimes it might be safe to touch one pole/wire of a two wired outlet
but it might also not be safe, it depends on how it was wired or how the
system works... in general it's not safe to touch anything...

It depends if you yourself are grounded or not...

If you are grounded you are more at danger of getting shocked.

If you are like a bird sitting high on something/one wire and you not
grounded but you are touching stuff then you all have some potential... so
no shock... as long as all wires have more or less same potential and no
current possible or something like that.

Yeah... so I guess if "central" is +120 and "plus" is +120 volt and you only
touching those two and you not grounded, then you yourself would also become
+120 volt and nothing would happen.

But if you connected yourself to something else at the same time which
is -120... you will probably be shocked... it depends on how the electricity
flows... but it's dangerous for sure !

So always look for potential differences.

This might also explain what happened to my situation with the pc and the
receiver being on different sockets.

Perhaps the receiver used +200 volts and the pc uses plus +600 volts or
something...

And then the receiver leaks +10 volts or something and the pc leaks +50
volts or something...

And then there is a potential difference... and then maybe that gets
transferred via the audio connectors... when I connected/touched the audio
connectors to the pc casing...

This leakage voltage from the PC or vice versa receiver started flowing...
this also caused the buzz sound... making the receiver believe the pc was
sending signals... while in reality it probably was not...

I am not sure in what direction the electricity flowed... maybe it doesn't
matter for it to cause damage...

Perhaps it was towards the receiver since it started making sounds...

At the same time the flow was so great that somehow this travelled through
PC/motherboard as well and caused damage... perhaps it flowed back from
receiver to soundblaster... into motherboard... soundblaster survived...
motherboard strangely enough died...

Perhaps some kind of shock breaker in motherboard ? but when powering it on
everything would still function except booting/motherboard itself... kinda
weird...

So perhaps some components in the motherboard can't handle a large potential
difference and gets blown up ?!? or melted ?


Bye,
Skybuck.

1 SHOCK
2 YES
3 NO
4 NO
5 NO
6 TO MAKE A LOOP
78910111213... DANGER

SUMMARY
please do not use voltages over 40 volts.

One explanation for the soundblaster surviving and the motherboard dieing
could be the following (whacky hypo):

The soundblaster was not playing any music or sound therefore it was
practically off... perhaps creative labs was smart enough to power down the
soundblaster when no sound is playing, so all gates on the soundblaster were
closed.

The motherboard and the cpu on the other hand are always on and working...
the motherboard has all gates open... and then voltage surge comes flowing
in and nothing stops it... and kills of some components which if the
motherboard was off might have been protected by closed gates.... but
because the gates were open the motherboard died.

That's my whacky theory.

Ofcourse it could also be simply a weak motherboard/components...

Bye,
Skybuck.

On May 12, 5:02*am, "Skybuck Flying" wrote:
Ok,

I found answers to my last few questions.

According to a "belgium" professor... (though I don't know if we can trust
the belgiums ! LOL ) it works like this:

Again it's all about "potential differences" like gas pressures would be my
example or his example a ball rolling off a cliff...

If the ball is on an equal plane then nothing happens no matter how low or
high that plane is... all parts are equal...

Now comes the answer to the outlets.

The ground wire is said to be "zero" or "grounded" but this is pretty
arbitrary...

The other two pools are given a different potential in respect/relation to
the zero/ground/central wire.

So the ground wire could be zero or perhaps even something else.

So the - wire could be -120 volts or simply 0 as well.

So the + wire could be +120 volts or simply 240 volts as well.

So sometimes it might be safe to touch one pole/wire of a two wired outlet
but it might also not be safe, it depends on how it was wired or how the
system works... in general it's not safe to touch anything...

It depends if you yourself are grounded or not...

If you are grounded you are more at danger of getting shocked.

If you are like a bird sitting high on something/one wire and you not
grounded but you are touching stuff then you all have some potential... so
no shock... as long as all wires have more or less same potential and no
current possible or something like that.

Yeah... so I guess if "central" is +120 and "plus" is +120 volt and you only
touching those two and you not grounded, then you yourself would also become
+120 volt and nothing would happen.

But if you connected yourself to something else at the same time which
is -120... you will probably be shocked... it depends on how the electricity
flows... but it's dangerous for sure !

So always look for potential differences.

This might also explain what happened to my situation with the pc and the
receiver being on different sockets.

Perhaps the receiver used +200 volts and the pc uses plus +600 volts or
something...

And then the receiver leaks +10 volts or something and the pc leaks +50
volts or something...

And then there is a potential difference... and then maybe that gets
transferred via the audio connectors... when I connected/touched the audio
connectors to the pc casing...

This leakage voltage from the PC or vice versa receiver started flowing....
this also caused the buzz sound... making the receiver believe the pc was
sending signals... while in reality it probably was not...

I am not sure in what direction the electricity flowed... maybe it doesn't
matter for it to cause damage...

Perhaps it was towards the receiver since it started making sounds...

At the same time the flow was so great that somehow this travelled through
PC/motherboard as well and caused damage... perhaps it flowed back from
receiver to soundblaster... into motherboard... soundblaster survived...
motherboard strangely enough died...

Perhaps some kind of shock breaker in motherboard ? but when powering it on
everything would still function except booting/motherboard itself... kinda
weird...

So perhaps some components in the motherboard can't handle a large potential
difference and gets blown up ?!? or melted ?

Bye,
* Skybuck.

Typical mistake: a rock band uses a generator for a 1000 watt PA
system. They neglect to ground it. The guitar player haqs a hand on
the metal guitar strings. The guitar player touches the microphone
with his lips and feel pain. The drummer grounds the generator. The
pain goes away.

Ground terminals at Earth voltage is better than a floating ground
terminal which can be boosted to 300 volts by induction, charge
pumping, and "ground loops".

You must feel real happy ! =D

Finally a real electrical question that you could answer ! Instead of my
whacky theories ! =D LOL.

I am very happy for you ! =D

Bye,
Skybuck =D

"Globemaker" wrote in message
...
1 SHOCK
2 YES
3 NO
4 NO
5 NO
6 TO MAKE A LOOP
78910111213... DANGER

SUMMARY
please do not use voltages over 40 volts.

On Thu, 12 May 2011 10:21:53 +0200, "Skybuck Flying"
wrote:

Hello,

Lately I am wondering

****head. Just go hunt up a tin foil hat on ebay or google.

Dear Skybuck Flying:

On May 12, 1:21*am, "Skybuck Flying" wrote:
Hello,

Lately I am wondering what would happen to an
appartment complex or any other building for that
matter where there are many ground wires and
power outlets with ground pins and for example
electrical devices with cables and ground wires
attached to them, and then a terrorists comes by
and puts a large current/voltage onto the ground
wire of one of the apperments...

In Europe, and most of the world, the neutral is the ground.

Essentially, there would be no harm, since the building becomes the
ball on top of a Van de Graaf generator.

My question is:

What would happen to all other appertments and
people touching the grounded devices ?!?

No issues. Might have some of the "touch-to-turn-on/off" lamps
changing state.

Would they suddenly all get shocks and/or be
electricuted ?!?

Nope.

Or is the "earth" so strong that all current/voltage
would disappear into the earth ?!?

It is hard wired at power distribution, sometimes at each "apartment".

Or does it depend on where the current is applied
and where the victims are ?

No dependence.

So if terrorist is on top floor, all bottom floors get
electricuted ? But if terrorists is in basement or
bottom floor then top floors are safe ???

Everybody safe.

David A. Smith