Galvanic series

Alright kiddo, imagine you have a lot of different toys that are made of different materials like metal, plastic, and wood. If you put all of them into your toy box together, some of them might start to change or break down over time because of something called "rusting" or "corrosion".

A galvanic series is like a list of all the types of toys you have, but instead of talking about materials like metal or plastic, we're talking about metals or other materials that are used to make things like pipes, boats, or airplanes.

Now, some of those metals will "rust" or "corrode" faster than others when they come into contact with something else, like water or salt. The galvanic series puts all of the different metals in order from the ones that corrode the fastest to the ones that corrode the slowest.

So, if you have two different metals that you want to use together, knowing where they are on the galvanic series can help you figure out which one might corrode faster and cause problems. For example, if you have a boat made of aluminum and you want to attach a stainless steel ladder to it, you can check the galvanic series to see that aluminum is a more "reactive" metal than stainless steel, which means that the aluminum might start to corrode faster than the stainless steel. To prevent this from happening, you might use a special insulation material between the two metals to keep them from touching directly.