Somewhere in your life you may have learned that you should not climb onto a train at a station and touch the wires above it. But why shouldn’t you?

This is where electric potential comes into play. The wire is full of energetic, charged electrons, which makes for a great potential difference between the wire and your uncharged hand. This potential difference will force the electrons through your body, allowing them to release their huge amount of energy and thereby destroying (electrocuting) your body. But electric potential can be found in much more than just your local train station, as you will discover in this unit of the course.

Image by NickyPe from Pixabay is licensed under CC0