Short circuit

A short circuit is a fault in electrical[?] apparatus whereby electrical current is allowed to flow between a phase and the electrical earth[?] or between two phases.

Short circuits are usually caused when a breakdown of insulation occurs, or when a conducting medium, such as water allows current to flow.

Short circuits can cause significant damage to electrical installations, which are normally protected by fuses, circuit breaker or other overload protection.

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In computer programming, short circuit is skip evaluation if the whole expression is false regardless the rest of computations.