What causes voltage between AC Mains phase and me?

[electricx]

TL;DR

what causes voltagebetween my hand and phase wire

So my question is that if i put other lead of multimeter to my hand and other lead to socket 230 phase wire why it shows 150 volts when i stand at floor and 80 volts when i stand at carpet? what causes those voltages? And yes i know doing that could be dangerous. It also shows weird voltage if i put other lead to 230v and other lead to my pc body when pc is not even connected to socket. In that case i got 180 volts.

 

[berkeman]

Welcome to PF.

Are you familiar with the concept of parasitic capacitance? Your body has parasitic capacitance to Earth ground (and other metal stuff around you), so you are seeing a voltage divider across your parasitic capacitance to AC Mains and Earth Ground.

https://incompliancemag.com/article/human-body-model-and-electrostatic-discharge-esd-tests/

 

[Baluncore]

Welcome to PF.

You are seeing the voltage or current that flows when there is capacitive coupling between objects and various AC voltages.

 

[Babadag]

The multimeter presents the voltage drop between its connecting points. That means, this voltage is proportional with the current flowing through the multimeter impedance-I think mainly through a reactance [inductive].However, the circuit passes through grounding resistance ,your body and the floor and how this resistance is more elevated the current is lesser, so the voltage drop through the multimeter. Then, when the carpet resistance is inserted in this circuit then the current will be lower and so the voltage on multimeter.

 

[Babadag]

Something like this

 

[Rive]

Just as a reminder: if the internal resistance of the multimeter is not present (for example, because somebody trying to measure the current in such situation and set it to measure current - seen that happen) then the whole experiment becomes life threateningly dangerous.

Best not to fiddle with anything connected to line voltage. Not even with a multimeter.