I know that electrons are basically the way electronics work on a basic level, “current! and magic?”
But I dunno what that means. Which probably is a good reason why I don’t know the answer of my question. Here we go:
When a generator makes power (which I think means it sends electrons down a line?) The electrons that the generator shoves down the pipe gotta come from somewhere right? Do they just manifest? It’s called a generator for a reason?
Electrons are a part of atoms right? So one would assume those pieces of an atom have got to be replaced? Or made. Or surely itll be some freakish atom eventually with 0 electrons and 82 neutrons and protons. Probably giving folks cancer.
In: 2
Imagine water in a fully enclosed pipe system. Say you had a long tube in a circle. The water in that pipe can move, but unless something moves it, it’s not really gonna go anywhere. Let’s attach a pump to that pipe. The pump will move the water around the system. It’s pushing the water in a direction now. We’ve got motion. Let’s put a water mill on the pipe system. The pump is pushing water around, and that motion is now spinning the water mill. That all makes sense, right? The water is moving because we’re pushing it, and the moving water is moving the mill. We’re making use of the water’s movement to do something.
Now let’s apply it to electronics.
Instead of a pipe, it’s a cable. Instead of water, it’s electrons. Conductive metals have electrons that can move about if given energy, so they act like the water in our analogy. Instead of our pump, we have our generator. The generator converts other forms of energy (combustion, motion) into electrical charge that gives those electrons in the cable energy to move. They move in one direction because of magnetic fields, but that’s not important. Just know that just like the previous example, we’re pushing the electrons along the cable like we pushed the water along the pipe. Now, instead of a water mill, we can use any electrical device. The energy has been pushed towards the device, powering it. We’re making use of the charged electron’s movement to do something.
The electrons aren’t in the atoms that make up the matter of the cable, they effectively orbit the proton/neutron clusters, so there’s not atomic changing. A copper cable never changes from being a copper cable, it just carries charges along it. There’s no change in the total number of electrons, they’re moving from one copper atom to another, taking the place of the one that was there previously.
No energy is created or destroyed, merely converted from something, into electricity, into something else.
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