Thursday, July 31, 2014

Nature of Electricity

Electricity is a branch of Science concerned with Charges that is the positive and negative charges.
Matter, anything that occupies space and has weight, is made up of atoms as its smallest indivisible particles. Atoms are made up of Protons, Neutrons and Electrons, and each of these particles has at least one property:
  • An Electron is negatively charged
  • A Proton is positively charged
  • A Neutron has no charge
The presence of positive charges cause the flow of electrons in a material/matter (unlike charges attract each other), also negative charges repel negative charges to cause the flow of electrons in matter/material. Protons and Neutrons don't move because they are trapped inside the nucleus.

Some materials allow the flow of electrons easily whereas others do not allow any flow of electrons at all.
Materials (Matter) which ease the flow of Electrons are called Conductors and those ones which do not allow the flow of Electrons are called Insulators.
Examples of Conductors are; copper, silver, Aluminium and all wet substances. Copper and silver are good compared to other conductors because they have very low resistance.
Examples of Insulators include; papers, rubber, dry wood, plastics, glass, polyvinyl chloride and Bakelite. Rubber and glass are good insulators compared to others because they have very high resistance.

There are two types of Electricity and these are:


  1. Static Electricity
  2. Current Electricity
Static Electricity is where both positive and negative charges do not move in a material. Either of the charges gather on a surface of a material without moving.
Whereas Current Electricity is where electrons move freely in a material.
You can also read about:
How does Electricity work?