Electricity

Electricity is such an integral part of daily living that it is difficult to imagine a time when it did not "exist" a time when there were no lights, no computers, no phones, and no appliances. A time when everyday tasks like laundry, cooking, and vacuuming were not made easy with mechanics run by electricity. However, such a time did exist. But with the observations and experiments of curious and intelligent scientific figures, electricity was discovered and harnessed.

Awareness of electricity dates back to the Greeks who discovered that amber, when rubbed, attracted lightweight particles such as straw (Dunsheath, p. 1). However, the value of this force was not determined until much later when scientists began to study it in more depth and invent equipment that could measure and capture it.

William Gilbert of Colchester (15441603) was one of the first to include the topic in a published work. De Magnete examined the electrical properties of many substances and set forth experiments Gilbert had conducted with his versorium, a personal invention that measured the magnitude of electrical charge (Dunsheath, p. 2).

While the information was interesting, not much was done with it until Otto von Guericke (16021686) conducted his own studies with his own invention. He had developed a frictional machine which generated static charges. This work led to the discovery that like charges repel each other, one of the fundamental principles of electricity (Dunsheath, p. 3

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stance. Every circuit has some level of resistance inherent in it. Even in good conductors, a minimum resistance is created as the electron moves through and bumps into other particles. Resistance is determined by the material, length, cross-sectional area, and temperature, and is expressed in ohms. Resistance is directly proportional to length and temperature, but inversely proportional to the cross-sectional area. Currently two types of current are utilized by the majority of appliances: direct current or dc and alternating current or ac. A direct current results when the current flows through the conductor in one direction at a constant magnitude. The alternating current constantly varies in magnitude and periodically reverses direction. If an appliance is plugged into a circuit whose current does not match its current, the appliance may be destroyed and the fuses blown. AC/DC adapters can prevent this from happening. Most United States outlets and appliances run with an alternating current while many European outlets and appliances use a direct current. It has been noted that a current will also generate a magnetic field. This phenomenon is studied in more depth in the field of electromagnetics. But it is impo

Category: Science - E