Answer to Question #265593 in Electric Circuits for Edww

Question

Differences between electric shock versus spark?

Answer 1

An electric shock is caused by electric current flowing through a living body while electric spark is a sudden flow of electric current across an air gap or other gases or mixture of gases.

The magnitude of electric spark depends on separation of the sources of electric charges and the potential difference in volts while electric shock mainly depends on the amount of current flowing through a body.

Electric shock is a physiological reaction caused by electric current flowing through a living body and it can always be dangerous, but electric spark don't necessarily cause shock because a small current is involved as air rapidly transit from non-conducting to conductive state.

Electric shock occurs through living body which are conductors of electric current but spark occurs through a normally insulating medium which is ionized and made an electrically conductive channel by high electric field