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
The reason we make wires out of metals is that the electrons and atoms in metal is very loosely coupled together. In metals there are plenty of free electrons which does not belong to any single atom but rather move around between the atoms freely. So you can sometimes get atoms with negative charge and sometimes with positive charge. But in general current will flow from positive to negative to even out the charges.
What a generator is doing is to force the charge to flow from negative to positive within the generator. This requires power. So you end up with two wires to a generator, one positively charged and one negatively charged. You can then connect these two wires to an electrical load to allow the charge a place to flow and it will force its way through the resistance in the load.
This is why the power plug in the generator have two prongs in addition to the ground. One prong for each direction of current flow. However it does not matter which is which since the current changes direction several times a second.
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