Understanding Alternating Current Supply in Households

[kiamzattu]

My Question is this-

We get AC supply to our houses, So for the first half cycle the current should from thro
the live wire to the load and then return thro neutral, Now for the 2nd half cycle this
must be reveresed, That is Neutral-load-Phase. This is wat is Alternating current.
But I closed the switch, inserted the tester in the live terminal and it glowed, jus as
expected,then i inserted the tester into the neutral and it didn't glow.How's that?
Now if the neutral wire acts only as the return wire and v get current only thro the
phase terminal from the generating stations how can v cal that as alternating current, becaus
the current is uni-directional.


Regards
Anand

 

[Shooting Star]

The potential of the live wire cycles from positive to negative. When a simple appliance, a light bulb say, is connected between the live and the neutral, the direction of the current also changes from positive to negative cyclically across the load. So, it's not unidirectional, but only the potential of the live wire is changing periodically. The neutral wire remains at a constant (zero) potential.