What is the potential of the earth
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Why is the earth at zero potential?
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Jaskaran Bhatia, studied at Shaheed Rajpal DAV Public School, Dayanand Vihar (2018)
Answered Jul 12, 2018
Originally Answered: Why is the Earth still at zero potential?
Why is the Earth still at zero potential?
Setting the potential of the Earth equal to zero is nothing more than mathematical assumption for electrical engineering purposes. In reality, there is nothing such as an absolute potential. We only talk of the potential difference.
I'm assuming the following line of thought that you might have had prior to asking this question: we usually 'ground' a lot of appliances, and hence some amount of charge must flow into the Earth. This should change the potential.
I have two explainations to this, as a high school physics student:
The formula for earth's potential assuming it to be an approximate sphere would be kq/r, where k is a constant, q is the charge, and r, the radius. For all intents and purposes, we can assume that at any given time, the amount of charge flown from the device in consideration, q, is very small in magnitude, and the radius is comparatively quite large, both in the standard units. This gives a negligible potential change.
At all times, it's not safe to assume that only a single type of charge (positive/negative) is being transferred by grounding appliances. Hence, on an average, there's always an approximate electrical neutrality of charge that's being transferred to the Earth. This should result in no potential change on the whole.
This is my reasoning, but I'm open to clarifications from others. :)
Cheers!
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Robert Morkel
Answered Mar 19, 2016 · Author has 627 answers and 2.2m answer views
Electrical potential is defined only in terms of differences, that is, the potential difference between two points can be calculated, but there is no absolute definition of the electrical potential at one point (this is because the physically observable field, the electric field, is given by a derivative of the potential, so only differences are physical). The Earth is often chosen to be the zero point for convenience, much like choosing the origin of a coordinate system. It is not the only possible choice, and in fact the potential is often to be zero at r = infinity, so that the potential at any distance closer to a source charge at r = 0 will be negative.
For more info visit:
https://www.electrikals.com/
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Hemendra Sharma, B.Tech, BBA, Engineering Science & Biology, Amity University (2021)
Answered Jul 6, 2018
Generally potential at infinity is zero and Earth is spherical then the potential at the surface of the earth is given bykq/r(kq/r( k=k=constant,qq = free charge on earth surface and r=r= radiusof earth). As qqis very small and rr very large, the potential at Earth's surface is almost zero. So for all practical purposes we assume its potential to be zero. The potential at infinity is assumed to be absolutely zero whereas that on Earth's surface it is almost zero.
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What is your question?
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7 ANSWERS

Jaskaran Bhatia, studied at Shaheed Rajpal DAV Public School, Dayanand Vihar (2018)
Answered Jul 12, 2018
Originally Answered: Why is the Earth still at zero potential?
Why is the Earth still at zero potential?
Setting the potential of the Earth equal to zero is nothing more than mathematical assumption for electrical engineering purposes. In reality, there is nothing such as an absolute potential. We only talk of the potential difference.
I'm assuming the following line of thought that you might have had prior to asking this question: we usually 'ground' a lot of appliances, and hence some amount of charge must flow into the Earth. This should change the potential.
I have two explainations to this, as a high school physics student:
The formula for earth's potential assuming it to be an approximate sphere would be kq/r, where k is a constant, q is the charge, and r, the radius. For all intents and purposes, we can assume that at any given time, the amount of charge flown from the device in consideration, q, is very small in magnitude, and the radius is comparatively quite large, both in the standard units. This gives a negligible potential change.
At all times, it's not safe to assume that only a single type of charge (positive/negative) is being transferred by grounding appliances. Hence, on an average, there's always an approximate electrical neutrality of charge that's being transferred to the Earth. This should result in no potential change on the whole.
This is my reasoning, but I'm open to clarifications from others. :)
Cheers!
2k Views · View 9 Upvoters
Sponsored by Mailchimp
Keep your business growing.
We make it easy to find your people with social ads, postcards, landing pages, and more.
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RELATED QUESTIONS (MORE ANSWERS BELOW)
Why is the gravity at the centre of Earth zero while potential is not zero?
819 Views
Why is the potential of body connected to earth consider to be zero?
2,194 Views
Why is the potential of the Earth taken to be zero?
1,796 Views
Why is it logical to say that the potential of the Earth connected objects is zero? What can be say about the charge on the Earth?
954 Views
Is it possible to have zero gravity on the earth?
6,330 Views
OTHER ANSWERS

Robert Morkel
Answered Mar 19, 2016 · Author has 627 answers and 2.2m answer views
Electrical potential is defined only in terms of differences, that is, the potential difference between two points can be calculated, but there is no absolute definition of the electrical potential at one point (this is because the physically observable field, the electric field, is given by a derivative of the potential, so only differences are physical). The Earth is often chosen to be the zero point for convenience, much like choosing the origin of a coordinate system. It is not the only possible choice, and in fact the potential is often to be zero at r = infinity, so that the potential at any distance closer to a source charge at r = 0 will be negative.
For more info visit:
https://www.electrikals.com/
4.6k Views · View 6 Upvoters
Your feedback is private.
Is this answer still relevant and up to date?

Hemendra Sharma, B.Tech, BBA, Engineering Science & Biology, Amity University (2021)
Answered Jul 6, 2018
Generally potential at infinity is zero and Earth is spherical then the potential at the surface of the earth is given bykq/r(kq/r( k=k=constant,qq = free charge on earth surface and r=r= radiusof earth). As qqis very small and rr very large, the potential at Earth's surface is almost zero. So for all practical purposes we assume its potential to be zero. The potential at infinity is assumed to be absolutely zero whereas that on Earth's surface it is almost zero.
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Explanation: The reason why electric potential of earth is zero bcz when we connect earth through conductor and start giving charge to that conductor so definitely it will be the flow of electric through conductor to earth but as we know the mthametical formula of electric potential is kq/r it means electric potential inversely proportional to earth nd directly proportional to charge supplied and in our case radius is humongous which leads to a very small electric potential and if compare charge nd earth so charge is sooo tiny in quantity which leads to very small change in electric potential and therefore earth potential will remain zero the example of this case is suppose there is an ocean and you wanna exceed its quantity and for this you are pouring a bucket of water in ocean so what do uh think it exceed in quantity or remain same so if uh have youri sense your answer will be ohh man stop asking these foolish question obviously remain same....
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