Did you know that a spark of electricity can measure up to 3,000 volts? Electricity is all around us. It powers cars, computers, cell phones, television sets, stoves, air conditioners, and gives us light. What is electricity? A simple definition would be a type of energy that can build up in one place or flow from one place to another, or the flow of charged atomic particles. It is a movement of charged atomic particles, called electrons, protons, and neutrons. The two main forms of electricity are static electricity and electrical currents. Have you ever taken off your hat after being outside in the cold and your hair stands up? This is because of static electricity. Static electricity is electrical charges building up on the surface of …show more content…
Direct currents only go one way. They are unidirectional. Examples of a direct current are batteries and circuits. Direct currents are used to power video game systems such as xbox, playstation, or wii. Alternating currents go in two directions, They are bidirectional. An example of this is household electricity. Alternating currents alternate directions sixty times per second. While the electrons are alternating directions, the light bulb goes on and off. Light bulbs are always flickering, but it is too fast for the human eye to see, which is why we don’t see the constant flickering in light bulbs. Did you know the amount of energy Americans use doubles every twenty years? What is energy? “Energy is the ability to do work, or the ability to move, or elicit change in matter.” (Castro 2014) Energy is just there, it cannot be created or destroyed. It can also be transferred between two objects by using force. We measure energy in joules. It can be converted from one form to another. Energy is transferred with kinetic and potential energy. We use kinetic and potential energy …show more content…
It is very important, especially now when almost all new technology is electrically powered. Electrical energy is the flow of electric charge through a conductor, such as metal, copper, or silver. Toasters, microwaves, and video games use electrical energy.
A fifth form of energy is gravitational energy. An example of gravitational energy is water falling off a cliff, forming a waterfall. This is gravitational energy because gravity caused the water to fall instead of staying suspended in the air. The water used gravitational energy to fall down the cliff. If gravitational energy did not exist, the water would not be able to fall off the cliff, it would just stay at the top of the cliff.
Another form of energy is light energy. Light energy is energy that is visible to us with the human eye. The sun, a candle, or a flashlight produce light energy. These are examples of light energy because they give off light that we can see. If light energy did not exist, the sun wouldn’t be able to give off light energy and we would not have that giant light and heat source in our solar system which is very important and essential in our
When something gives us energy, it means more than to just give us the required power to work or move along for such a specific task. In biological terms, it means to have your energy be transported through your body and placed by cells into biomolecules. Biomolecules such as lipids and carbohydrates. It then stores that energy in our body.
Electricity is an interesting subject. There is so much you can learn from it, like how our lights turn on or how we make cell phones. This is all a mystery until we finally get a little bit of information in our brains. I've just read two articles, "Energy Story" and "Conducting solutions". I also watched a video called Hands-on Science with Squishy circuits. I learned so much valuable information from these resources.
Do you ever wonder about what happens with electricity? In the article “Energy Story” written it tells you about atoms and what things need to have to be that type of object. In the article “Conducting Solutions” by Rodney Schreiner tells you about solutions and the reactions to them with electricity. In the video clip “Hands-on Science with Squishy Circuits” by AnnMarie Thomas it tells you about how simple play dough can hold electricity.
Lightning is caused from the rising and lowering of air in a thunderstorm. The air movement separates the negative and positive particles. Water and ice are also known to affect the electrical charge distribution. Lightning is the buildup and discharge of electrical energy between negative and positively charged areas. Lightning usually is ignited in the clouds or between the clouds and ground and is a strong electrical power. The average flash of lightning turns on a 100- watt light bulb for over three months. Not only is the flash powerful, but also the air around the strike is hotter than the sun. The rapid heating and cooling of air caused by the strike results in a lightning channel shock wave known as thunder. Lighting occurs all over, the chance of being struck by lightning is 1 in 600,000. A lighting strike cannot only strike a person leaving them with an electrical shock or dead, but also can cause a fire. In the past 10 years over 15,00 fires have been started by lightning.
When I was first told in class that I had to write my first essay in EGEE about what I knew about energy, I figured it would be easy. I knew what everyone knew about energy: some comes from the sun, some is used to make machines work, and some is used to make our bodies work. However, after the first four weeks of EGEE I’ve learned more about energy than I learned in four years of high school. I’ve learned definitions of energy, power, and heat to name a few, and I’ve also learned different units of energy and power measurements.
To understand how this electricity works we must start with the basics. The atom is the smallest unit of matter, consisting of protons, neutrons, and electrons. Protons have a positive charge, neutrons have no charge, and electrons have a negative charge. Electric charges that are the same repel each other and charges that are different attract each other. Electric charges can exist alone, unlike magnetic poles.
Light! What is it? Where does it come from? What can we do with it to help humanity? It allows us to see the unknown the places that have been dark for years. It helps us see what is around us. Different sources of light can be used to power the things around us. Lightning is a source of light.
The three stories that I have read about electricity has a purpose or a main idea. In "Energy Story" it was about showing the importance of electricity and how much an average human has that is bound to work with electricity. In "Hands-on Science" they taught you how to make your own circuit or electricity by normal thing in your kitchen. Finally, in "Conducting Solutions" they think of random stuff to conduct solutions for electricity. All three of these stories had something in common, these where all ways to show the importance of electricity and how to save it.
Merriam Webster defines Galvanism as “a direct current of electricity especially when produced by chemical action”. The term Galvanism is actually derived from
In ancient times, lightning was seen as a tool of the gods. In Viking legend, it was Thor’s hammer striking an anvil in the sky that was responsible for lightning. For the Greeks, it was Zeus who threw lightning down to the earth. North American Indian tribes thought that lightning was produced by a mystical bird with flashing feathers whose flapping caused thunder. Even now, hundreds of years after the first scientific work with lightning, people remain in awe of its power. In the 18th century, the first systematic scientific study of lightning was carried out by Benjamin Franklin. Before Franklin’s experiments, electrical science had grown to the point of separating positive and negative charges, and had developed primitive capacitors. The sparks produced in laboratories were noted as similar to lightning, but it was Franklin who designed an experiment to prove that lightning was electrical.
Electricity and electrical components are a major part of our lives today. Our lives pretty much come to a halt if there is a power outage or if our electrical devices stop working, sometimes we even start panicking because we are so dependent on these components that we cannot afford to lose them and their importance and use only increases as time passes. We all use these electrical devices and also electricity itself but most of us do not think about the math and physics that works behind all of these things.
The types of energy can assist in proving the importance of energy in general. First, potential energy is useful because everything has dormant energy in their composition or energy gained from increase in vertical distance. This allows for structural supports added for increase in distance and chemical reactions that allow for oxygen, water and other basic necessities. Next, kinetic energy is energy to allow for motion. To walk, run, drive, move, etc. this requires kinetic energy. In addition, thermal energy is a form of kinetic energy which is measured in temperature. This is useful to identify and react to heat and cold temperatures and manipulate each of these to assist us. Electricity, the force of electric charge can assist humankind because of its ability to power lightbulbs and technology. Technology is a source of entertainment, social interaction and information. Lightbulbs allows us to illuminate the region we are in. Lastly, gravitational energy is force between to two objects with a distance exerted from each object. This can be used to assist with hydroelectricity and gravity. Hydroelectricity come from waterfalls that use the gravity to power the energy transferred to electricity. Gravity being exerted constantly, we can use this to allow for many different activities like acceleration due to gravity or gravity allow us to stay on earth and not float away. To conclude, energy makes up our entire universe and the way we use this energy is important because could there ever be a point in time where we run out of
Humans these days take electricity for granted. We don’t truly understand what life was like without it. Most young adults will tell you their life does not depend on electricity, but they aren’t fooling anyone. They all know that their life depends on electricity; whether it’s television, their phone, Google, or the lights in their house. We need to stop taking those things for granted and give credit where credit is due. That is why I chose to write about the scientists who contributed to the discovery of electricity, which then helped modern scientists fuel the electricity phenomenons we now have today.
Energy is a property of matter which can be transferred to other matters or transformed into different forms, although it cannot be created or destroyed. A common definition of energy is that it is the ability to do work. Work is the transfer of energy. Work is done on an object when energy is transferred to that object. If one object transfers energy to another object then the first object does work on the second object. Work is when a force is applied over a distance. To calculate work, find the dot product of an object’s displacement and the force applied. In SI units, energy is measured in joules (“Work, Energy and Power”, 2015).
An electric charge on an object that causes the object to attract or repel other objects is called static electricity. The adjective static describes something that does not move. Charges on an object are called static electricity to contrast then with the moving charges in an electric current.