What happens if we shot the +ve and -ve terminal of a battery?
If you short a battery it will result in the flow of current in the conducting circuit, the magnitude of which will be only be limited by the amount of charge in the battery and its internal resistance.This is will likely course damage to the battery or, at worst, discharge of the battery (probably both).If you do this to a motor vehicle battery, it can result in the generation of a large amount of heat in the conductor. You could get badly burnt.
If I have a battery of 120 volts & I happen to touch any of its terminals (only one terminal and not both). Is it going to electrocute me?
First, 120 Volts is not terribly dangerous. When I was training as a high-voltage lineman, the instructor in one class set up a variac to 120 VAC household current, wired 10 lb polished steel cylindrical electrodes across it, and tested each student to see how high the voltage they would accept from hand to hand without dropping the electrodes. It was also a demonstration to each of us what an electric shock feels like, and proving to us we could normally survive it, an important lesson when fear of a surprisee shock and loosing focus could and sometimes did cause a lineman to fall 25 or 30 feet from a pole to the ground with serious injury. I was one of very few who got to the full 120 volts. It "seized up" both my arms from the hands up to nearly the shoulders, but otherwise caused no injury. Later, when I was leading a crew of electricians on construction, one of my journeymen, an older fellow, used to often impress the apprentices by grabbing strongly onto two live 208 volt bus connectors in a commercial service entrance, then turn and ask an apprentice "Is this thing on?" when of course we all knew it was. I concluded he had heavy dry callouses on his palms, and knew enough to make sure his hands were very dry and that he wouldn't sweat from anxiety while doing it. Of course none of that still means I would be careless enough to drop a faulted 120 Volt electric drill onto my bare chest while laying on my back in a puddle under a car, pretty much a death sentence.
Will I get an electric shock by touching only one terminal of a DC generator without grounding another terminal?
There is 90% probability to get shock even if the generator is switched off and you hold the live terminal of the generator(This is because of residual current or return current from the windings are very high and can give extreme shock).While I was working in Nyveli Thermal Power Plant, none of them dare to go near the generator even if there is minor faults. They immediately trigger the emergency switch, wait for the instructions from the engineers and later they check for the current transformers and relays to find the real problem behind, then they ground the generator terminal to discharge any residual current and later they actually take a look at it or touch anything in the generator.We can assume that there is capacitive reactance between you and the ground but we cannot be sure of it. Theoretically we can speak of all stuffs but practically you cannot let a person to die, there are many instances people died in power plants even after proper safety measures being taken, these can be due to residual current flow, switches might not have been properly opened and ground faults(this can be line wire might have fallen somewhere and current being flowing through two phase lines or neutral carrying some part of current).The reason why I am explaining this is, because even professional and experienced people who work in sector dies hoping that having enough safety measure will protect them and leaving minor problems that might have the cause. So I recommend you even if you hear someone say that holding live wire while other is not grounded might not let you get shock, don’t try it. Not all the equipments are electrically isolated, this is the reason you use isolation transformer in electrical lab when you are operating any instruments, apart from this heavily protected isolation transformer, you are asked to wear thick footwears even for 240V 10A power supply equipments, so you can understand you cannot play with electrical equipments just based on theoretical assumptions. Nobody can retrieve you, once you experience extreme shock.
Question involving the voltage when batteries are connected in different ways?
What is the voltage across six 1.5 V batteries when they are connected a) in series b) in parallel, c) three in parallel with one another and this combination wired in series with the remaining three? I'm not sure if there is an equation to use for these, but this is what I thought the answers should be: a) 9. Since they are in series don't I just add all of the volts up? b)1.5 Since each pathway is seperate? c) This one I have no clue I really need to understand how this works. What confuses me is there is no information about resistors so I don't really know how to solve this.
How come you can touch a wrench to the negative terminal of a car battery to the car?
The whole of the car body is the same potential as the battery's negative terminal. So electrons can't flow in any way through your wrench. That's why nothing happens. If you touch the positive terminal of the battery to the car's body, (which is 0V) with respect to the battery's positive terminal (which is +12V), electrons will flow from the car's body to the battery's positive terminal through your wrench at a rapid rate. As a result, your wrench will get very hot.
What is the potential difference between the negative terminal of a 5 V battery and the negative terminal of a 3 V battery?
If the two batteries are just sitting on a table, connected to nothing, it is possible for the potential between a battery and ground or the potential between the batteries to be anything. They could have a static charge on them. Suppose one battery had been there a long time, and the other had been placed by someone sliding their feet on a carpet - it could be 1000V. However a typical voltmeter has a finite resistance, and the static voltage difference would immediately be discharged and go to zero the moment you connected the voltmeter. If you used an electrostatic voltmeter, it might show a voltage difference, but it’s unpredictable.In many actual circuits, the negative terminals of both batteries would be connected to a common plane - or ground. In this case of course the PD between the terminals would be zero. Note that a common plane, such as a chassis, in engineering usage is often called “ground”, whether or not it is in fact connected to the earth or a water pipe.
If I touch both posts of a car battery will I get electrocuted?
Iwould have to agree with the comments, however I want to add, that it is the AMPS that kill, not the voltage. With high skin resistance, it takes a lot of amps to penetrate the skin. But a battery with 1000 amps, could possibly harm you, under the right conditions. If you ever seen a screw driver get burned when toughing positive to ground, you will see what amps can do. A 12 volt Battery can push say 30 amps down a wire, which would be 360 watts of power, for something like your cigarette lighter. Maybe only 5 amps for your radio, 60 watts of power. That same battery could also push 300 amps down a wire, to run the starter to start the car. In that case, the watts would 3600 watts of power. Running the 300 amps down a tiny wire would burn it up, so the starter uses a much larger wire to carry the current. So you see, 12 volt stays at 12 volts, but the amps and wattage goes up. Of course, if the voltage goes up, so does the amps, and wattage. (that amps could also go down, if the volts go up) A 6 volt battery has to push 10 amps to run the radio that the 12 volt only needs 5 amps. So as voltage goes up, amps could come down, for the same amount of power. But if the wire carring the current goes to ground...that is if it is touching metal on the car, then the amps will go to infinity, or as high as they can possibly go....and quickly burn out wires and electronic and maybe even you....for instead of having 5 amps or 30 amps it will go to possibly 500 amps or more..and very quickly...depending on the power of the battery. Best not to touch both posts at the same time. When you take them off...ALWAYS remove the Black negative wire first...then the Red positive. This prevents you grounding the positive when you take if off. To replace, put the Red positive on first, and then...the Black negative.
Will you get electrocuted if you touch copper wire connected to a battery?
Most likely, since you see no insulation, you will not be shocked and you will likely not feel it, even if you were completing the circuit. In order to be shocked, you must make contact to the two voltage levels, the one on the battery that you see and the one that makes contact to the opposite side of the battery. If you touch only one side of the circuit and you don't make contact in any way to the other side of the circuit, electricity can not flow through you. This is how power company workers can work on high voltage power lines, they don't become a path to ground. Also, this is why birds can land on a power line and not be shocked. J