Light reading

yes - but you do need to be careful what the touch voltage assumes you are standing on when you touch it - 'the earth' isn't a single level potential, perhaps  more of an LSD tripper's magic carpet, that comes up to meet you when move towards it and moves away when you do. In the case of the earth its voltage rises when you put current in, and falls away when you take current out.(*)


So touching one earth while standing on another may be very bad news.


Another way to think about this,  to the birds sitting safely on the 11kV line, have their feet equipotentially bonded, but to their world, the earthed metal crossbar is at a lethally high voltage,

Mike

(*)I'm told. The nearest I have got to this is with alcohol, and having to hang on tightly  to the kitchen floor  to stop it rotating an effect which has no good electrical analogy I can think of.

yes - but you do need to be careful what the touch voltage assumes you are standing on when you touch it - 'the earth' isn't a single level potential, perhaps  more of an LSD tripper's magic carpet, that comes up to meet you when move towards it and moves away when you do. In the case of the earth its voltage rises when you put current in, and falls away when you take current out.(*)


So touching one earth while standing on another may be very bad news.


Another way to think about this,  to the birds sitting safely on the 11kV line, have their feet equipotentially bonded, but to their world, the earthed metal crossbar is at a lethally high voltage,

Mike

(*)I'm told. The nearest I have got to this is with alcohol, and having to hang on tightly  to the kitchen floor  to stop it rotating an effect which has no good electrical analogy I can think of.