iamsand
Newbie level 3
I am trying to understand the purpose for earth ground. Imagine a world where the power company never attached the neutral conductor to ground, anywhere, not at the generation source, not along the transmission route and not at the destination. The neutral would be isolated from the earth, the same as the hot conductors are now. In that world, if either a neutral, or hot conductor were to come in contact with a metal equipment case and a person were standing in water with bare feet and touched it, they would not get shocked would they, since there would be no path back to either the neutral or hot side through the earth? How is earthing the neutral making things safer? Seems like we would have been better off if they never would have done it.