Question

After some building work in a house, a bare live wire is left protruding from the wall. What is the greatest hazard? A. a fire B. a fuse blows C. an electric shock D. no current flows.

Answer 1

Hint:To understand this question, it is necessary to understand the definition of live wire. Live wire is one of the three wires that are used to provide electricity to the house, the other two being Neutral wire and Earth wire. Then, we have to see the possibilities of a disaster if the live wire is exposed and protruded from the wall in the house

Complete step-by-step answer:
The wire that carries the electric current to household circuits consists of three differently colour-coded wires as follows:

i) Live Wire – Red: This wire carries the current from the main switch to the appliances in the house ii) Neutral Wire – Blue: This wire carries the return current from the appliances to the main switch. iii) Earth Wire – Green: This wire is used for earthing the appliance to protect the appliance from being prone to electric shocks.
Hence, we can see that the live wire carries very high current to the appliances. Hence, it is the most critical part of the circuit.
Let us understand the possible scenarios that might take place if a bare live wire is left protruding out of the unfinished wall of the house.
i) Fire:
Electric fires are caused when the value of the current flowing in the live wire exceeds to a very high number thereby, resulting in huge heat energy dissipated from the wire, which can cause fire due to melting of the wire coating.
This cannot happen as long as there is a sudden spike in the current and hence, bare live wire protruding out of the wall cannot possibly cause fire.
ii) Fuse blows:
The fuse is a device that melts and effectively, breaks the circuit when the current exceeds the given rating of the fuse. This can only happen if there is a huge rise in the current.
Therefore, this cannot happen in this case of bare live wire protruding out of the wall.
iii) Shocks:
The live wire protruding out, is exposed directly. When anyone comes in contact with it, there is a high risk of a huge electric shock since humans are very good conductors of electricity.
Therefore, the greatest hazard of a bare live wire, protruding from the wall is electric shocks

Hence, the correct option is Option C.

Note:In order to avoid this imminent risk of contact with bare live wire during constructions, the construction workers are mandated to wear only industrial grade safety boots that completely insulate the feet and thus, prevent from electric shocks.