Current electricity, as in an electrical current running through wires, is the kind of electricity which performs the Great Work for us in our houses and in our world.
Static electricity is something that every one has likely experienced, with a shock. Sometimes this happens from our socks rubbing over a carpet and then touching a person or a metal object. Synthetic clothing materials can cause static electricity and make our hair float up or cause a crackling after pulling a shirt over our head.
But current and static are different types of electricity. Static means that it is not moving, something is at rest or stationary. A current is movement. We see the movement in water when we watch the tides, these movements are called flood currents when the tide in coming in, and ebb currents when the tide is going out. Air currents are called wind. Weather maps show the currents of fast moving air which are called jet streams. Telluric currents, also called earth current, are natural electrical flow of movement on the surface of the earth and beneath the surface.
So a current is a moving force. Static is a force at rest, not moving.
A study of Electricity is a study of charged particles.
But when charged particles move the study of electricity becomes the study of currents.
Sometime shortly before the1800's someone named Alessandro Volta [born 1745- died 1847] created the first battery and that was the beginning of explorations with currents of electricity, in other words, moving forces of electricity.
In the centuries before Volta's first battery there were many scientists studying the static electricity. It was known that this accumulation of electricity could be tapped into when a disturbance occured or was created. A disturbance being something that bumps into one form of matter causing it to rub against another form resulting in the balance of the matter being thrown off. Something like a family of kids in the back seat of the car.
And what is getting thrown off, as a matter of fact, is the electrons.
So why does this happen? How does this happen? What is an electron? And Why Do We Care?
Lets get to the heart of the matter. You are matter, your shoes are matter, your feet are matter, everything you can see and touch are materialized substances. The electron is a subatomic particle. And a particle is a tiny portion of matter. Matter is what makes up the whole material world. These things all matter, so to speak.
An atom is part of the invisible world that makes up all the visible material stuff and things. So the atom, the in-visible is exactly that. The unseen atom is in the visible. A sub-atomic particle is something even smaller than the atom and that is why it is called sub-atom-ic.
Sub tells us that this is something smaller, or something going inside, going deeper into a level, or a smaller part of a thing. Such as a sub-marine goes deeper in water than a ship on the surface waters. It gets submerged as it goes into water. Subterranean caves are below the surface of the earth, or inside the earth. Subconscious is...
So in an oversimplifed version it all works like this.
1. Matter- that stuff that takes up space and can be seen, touched, tasted, heard
2. Molecules- a group of atoms held together by a force of electrical charge
3. Atoms- particles of matter, all the invisible pieces
4. Subatomic particles- particles of the atom, such as the electrons
In the physical material world there is solid stuff like the rocks, liquid stuff like the water, and gaseous stuff like the air. All of these are made from invisible molecules, atoms and subatomic particles. And ...there is electricity which some might say is the secret power holding the balance. The Force.
So getting back to the matter at hand.
As was said already, an electron is a subatomic particle of matter. It has some properties that we won't go into now because here we will dive into charge, and getting charged up. Each electron carries a definite negative charge.
A positive charge happens when there is a deficit of electrons. So, think of an egg carton full of eggs. Pretend each egg is an electron. Now imagine that the whole family just had scrambled eggs for breakfast. Then check back in the refridgerator and noitce the carton is missing a bunch of eggs (electrons). The carton now has a deficit of eggs (electrons). The carton is missing eggs that were there before.
Negative charge is an excess of electrons, so imagine your neighbor just brought you a basket of eggs. You refill the carton but there are still 5 more eggs so you stack them in between the other eggs. Now the carton has an excess of eggs (electons).
Electric current = the movement of electrons
Static Electricity = stationary electrons
Here, in the world of electrons, the concept of positive and negative is not mathematical and not good and bad. Actually the two terms in our subatomic dive are used to show the concept of opposite and alike. Two positive charged substances [electron deficit] are alike, two negative charged [excessive electrons] substances are alike. But two substances where one has a positive charge and the other has a negative charge are opposites. And opposites attract, while alike repels.
If I have the egg carton with excess eggs next to the carton with a deficit of eggs I am probabley going to balance out the cartons and put the extra eggs into the carton with empty spaces for egg. That is bringing back the balance of eggs in the cartons.
These forces of attraction and repulsion come right down to the electron which is inside the atom, but outside the nucleus, and the proton, which is also a particle like the electron. The proton is inside the atom same as the electron but it also is inside the nucleus, where the electron is not. The nucleus topic will come up in just a minute. But if you are following the current flow of information that has been laid out you likely are saying ...WAIT- HOLD ON - STOP RIGHT HERE
EXPLAIN WHY the electrons are not pulled by the force of attraction into this nucleus.
At this step I call it the Force of Curious Conundrums
Without getting totally off track here are some keys to the curiousity cabinet if you want to unlock more particles of information. Wave and Particle, Mass and Energy, Dual Nature of an electron, The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. -BUT REMEMBER, standing here on the second step it isn't really possible to see the view on the fourth floor of the building. To fully comprehend the view at each floor it is best to take each step and build the mind muscles as part of the excercise.
Okay, without going into too much more subatomic detailing let's get into static electricity. The carpet in a house, as an example, has these atoms with subatomic particles sitting around and we don't see them. You drag your sock covered feet across the carpet and this causes friction among the invisible carpet beings. Friction is the rubbing of two things together and one thing is resisting the movement or action of the other.
When objects are rubbed together this disturbance, called friction, causes electrons on the surface of the objects to transfer from one object to the other object. Actually, its all happening in the invisible atoms. This is just a rather surface explanation, so to speak. It goes much deeper.
Thinking of all this I get the image of a dog with fleas laying on the carpet. And someone comes along and starts to pet the dog, rubbing the fur. What happens is that the fleas might transfer from the dog to the arm rubbing the dog. The rubbing has sort of disturbed the fleas and they transfer onto the source of disturbance.
So now the arm with fleas or the feet that walked across the carpet have taken on fleas or electrons they did not have before, and the carpet or the dog has released these. Because electrons carry a negative charge the socks on the feet and the imaginary flea arm are now charged up with the negative force from these excess electrons transferred to them. The friction or rubbing pressed together the surface atoms of the two rubbing materials, which brought the electrons closer enabling the flea jump or electron transfer to the other object. This happens easily especially if that other object had a deficit of electrons.
So many electrons transferred over that now there is an imbalance of particles, with the excess of negatively charged electrons causing a lot of commotion, itching or static. And that is it exactly.
Static Electricity is the form of electricity that results when an imbalance is created between the postive protons particle and the negative electron particle.
And once it is formed the static just hangs around doing nothing, like a couch potato. The carpet area where the feet rubbed is now positive in charge because most of the negative electrons left the scene, and only the protons are hanging around.
At this point the person that took on all the static electricity, the negative electrons, may notice their hair getting staticy. What is happening is that the excess negative charge electrons are repelling the electrons that were already in the body, or material substance. So this repelling force is causing the negative charge, the static electricity, to move far away to the extremities, like the fingers, like the hair. The hair stands on end because the force gets built up on some of the hair and even repels one hair from another.
Now if the negatively charged up carpet walker, the excess electron carrier, walks over and touches something metal that is a conductor, like a door knob or car door, all those tiny electron particles run from everywhere toward the fingers reaching out to the metal object. Maybe you have felt this movement before as tingles travel down your arm or goose bumps make your hair stand on end? Its The Force, the force of attraction has pulled the electrons causing them to charge toward the opposite material.
Little soldiers on 'the field' ready to charge. And that build up of negative charge from all those electrons usually gets dis-charged, with a little shock and a crackle, or maybe bigger like a cannon.
Of course this is just a summary of what happens when static electric charge builds up. Sparks fly.
Electrons and the negative charge is a repelling force that pushes away from things, or actually from other subatomic particles, that also have a negative charge. But a negative electric charge will be attracted to a positively charged object because that object would be deficient in electrons and have plenty of room for more electrons to move in.
So this takes us back to the nucleus and the conductor and the electrical current.
Briefly lets just say that in the invisible electrical world of all matter, all the physical material world, the stuff is either a conductor or an insulator from the electron point of view. The kind of stuff, such as copper or gold and other metals, that contain a lot of free electrons, -free because they can move around and travel from one atom to another, this stuff is called electrical conductors. Pretty much like a train conductor gets everyone on the train and then takes them somewhere. Electrical Conductors move electricity, which is the free to move electrons. The stuff that doesn't allow electrons to move around is the electrical insulators, such as plastic or glass. That is the short version of conductors and insulators.
Earlier it was said that the electrons are inside the atom, and outside the nucleus. And electrons carry a negative charge. In order get to the positive charge carrier we have to bring in the atom and the nucleus.
It was the physicist Neils Bohr who proposed the theory of the nature of ATOMS. His theory was that the atoms are like an invisible solar system. In the solar system the sun is the center and the planets move, or orbit, around the sun. Atoms have a center called the nucleus and the particles called electrons revolve around the nucleus. The electrons are outside the nucleus. The particles called protons and neutrons are what make up the nucleus. The protons carry a positive charge and neutrons are neutral, carrying no charge. In the atom the particles of electrons and protons are always equal in quantity and the forces of positive and negative are therefore balanced, stable. But neutron particles can vary within the atom. This conversation is really about the positive and negative charge of material substance, and this is to do with the proton and electron. Mainly the electron.
And finally, current electricity comes in to play in order to push these otherwise static couch potato electrons around and make them do some work. The static is full of electric charge, but it is when it moves, that movement is the current. And the Force is what gets it to move from your hair and fingertips onto the metal door knob.
This is where Alessandro Volta came in. About the year 1800 the ability to make the negative charged electrons move happened. Copper wire was the conductor of choice and was used as the first Freeway, but for free electrons not cars. Same idea though. Imagine a rush hour freeway with cars bumper to bumper moving along. Well this is the image to keep in mind for those electrons getting bumped along that copper wire. And just like cars don't move by themselves a spark has to ignite the engine, so it is with the electric current.
Before the electrons will travel it takes some work to get them moving. Energy is just another name for work. Energy is a property of matter that can be measured as a capacity to do work... or something like that. In other words energy is contained in matter. And what is matter? Scroll back up.... Matter, Molecules, Atoms and particles...and force. Put that force... to WORK.
For this movement of electricity to come into play the force called electromotive force takes action. Basically, if all the detail and big words get eliminated it can be said this way.
Nature will always move to regain the balance. Electrons will move according to that Natural push or pull. The positive or negative electric charge is the force of action. The balance is a state of rest. The FLOW of electrons and electricity through the current is a process of The Great Work.
If change is desired, move the electrons. That is what Volta did and now Electricity is just something we think about when the power goes out. But how do we get our Power?
Its The Great Work.
Here is a source for easy to follow information on the Curious Conundrum of the nucleus. Open the link then scroll down to the heading Odds Against Nuclear Collision
