What is electricity and where does it come from?
In: Physics
Electricity is the movement of electrons between molecules. It comes from electrons preferring to be evenly distributed, so if you do something to build them up in one location by stripping them off existing molecules, they will want to flow through the closest molecules to even out their concentration.
Everything around us – people, animals, plants, water, air, everything – is made of atoms. Different things are made of different kinds of atoms. In the middle of an atom is the nucleus which can have two kinds of particles: protons and neutrons. Protons naturally have a positive electric charge while neutrons don’t have a charge.
Around the nucleus, there are electrons which spin around the nucleus a bit like planets move around the sun^(1). Electrons have a negative electric charge. Positive and negative charges attract each other which keeps the electrons close to the nuclei.
Normally, the electrons move around randomly but stick close to their nuclei but sometimes an electron is able to escape and start moving around some other nucleus.
When we connect a wire to a battery or some other source of electrical power, the voltage in the power source makes all the randomly moving electrons now move to one direction. This is electricity.
Electricity is a naturally occurring phenomenon in all atoms around us which we can utilize to move energy around.
*1 = according to the simplified Bohr atomic model. In reality, electrons move in a more complicated manner.*
*I’ve studied electricity for almost 4 years now. Ask me anything about electricity and I’ll do my best to answer*
It’s the movement of charged particles. Electrons are usually the medium of electricity but you can also have ions moving in solution like peeing on an electric fence.
Charged particles respond to electromagnetic forces. When there’s a big difference is charge density between two places it generates an electromagnetic force. If the force gets strong enough it either rips the electrons out of orbit or turns atoms into ions that can travel.
Latest Answers