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The world's modern economies, with their industrial, transportation, and communication systems,
were made possible by electricity. Old energy forms, such as water and steam, imposed limitations on
production--limitations on where goods could be produced and on how much could be produced.
Electricity has no such limits: it can go anywhere, even far into space.
The development of electricity has resulted in the total transformation of civilization in most
countries. It brings power into homes to operate lights, kitchen appliances, television sets, radios,
furnaces, computers, garage doors, and more. So common are its uses that one cannot imagine today's
world without it. Streets would not be lit. Telephones would not work. Storefronts and factories would
be dimmed.
Electrical forces are also responsible for holding body cells together in the shape they have. In fact,
electrical forces are fundamental in holding all matter together. As printed words are being read,
electric currents speed along nerve cells from eye to brain. The effect of an electric current can be
seen in the flash of lightning between thundercloud and Earth as well as in the spark that can be
produced when one walks on a carpet in a dry room.

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Understanding electricity begins with describing its effects. One way to begin is to examine
interactions that occur when electricity is at rest, or static electricity. Static electricity can be seen at
work when hair is combed on a cold, dry day. As the comb is pulled through the hair, strands of hair
stand out stiffly. Some kind of force seems to pull the hair upward toward the comb. To understand
the nature of this force it is necessary to know something about the structure of atoms and the concept
of electric charge.
If a glass rod is rubbed with silk and touched to a small sphere of aluminum foil suspended by a
thread, the sphere is observed to move away from the glass rod. The rod and sphere repel each other.
If the process is repeated with a second sphere and the spheres brought near each other, they too repel.
If a plastic rod is rubbed with wool and brought near either sphere, the spheres are observed to move
toward the plastic rod. These objects attract each other. If two new aluminum foil spheres are touched
to the plastic rod, they are repelled by the plastic, as well as by each other. But they are attracted to
the glass rod and the spheres touched by the glass rod.
These experiments can be explained by a two-charge model. Rubbing the glass with silk causes the
glass to acquire a positive charge. When touched to the spheres it shares some of its positive charge
with the spheres and these objects repel. Rubbing the plastic with wool causes the plastic to acquire a
negative charge. When touched to the spheres it shares some of its negative charge with the spheres
and these objects repel.
This interpretation of the experiment leads to the conclusion that like charges repel. When a
positively charged sphere is brought near a negatively charged plastic rod or sphere, attraction is
observed. When a negatively charged sphere is brought near a positively charged glass rod, attraction
is observed. This leads to the conclusion that unlike charges attract. No matter how an object is
charged, if it attracts the negatively charged sphere, it will also repel the positively charged sphere,
and vice versa. This leads to the belief that there are only two kinds of electric charge.
A model of matter is needed to explain how only two kinds of charged rods can be produced. Atoms
contain two kinds of charge, which are arbitrarily called positive and negative. Every atom is
composed of a positively charged nucleus around which are distributed negatively charged electrons.
Each nucleus contains a specific number of protons--particles that carry the positive charge. (With the
exception of the hydrogen atom, nuclei also contain uncharged neutrons.) In an uncharged atom there
are equal numbers of protons and electrons, and such an atom is said to be neutral. If a neutral atom
loses one or more of its electrons, it has an excess number of protons and it is positively charged. If a
neutral atom gains one or more electrons, it has an excess number of electrons and it becomes
negatively charged.
How does the simple atomic model relate to the static electricity experiments? Rubbing action
creates charged objects because it tears electrons loose from some kinds of atoms and transfers them
to others. In the case of plastic rubbed with wool, electrons are taken from the wool and pile up on the
plastic, giving the plastic a net negative charge and leaving the wool charged positively. When glass is
rubbed with silk, the glass loses electrons and the silk gains, producing glass that is charged positively
and silk that is charged negatively.
In the 18th century the French physicist Charles-Augustin de Coulomb showed the relationship
between the amount of electric force that two charged objects exert upon each other and the distance
separating them. For two point charges (a point charge is a charged sphere whose radius is very small
compared to its distance from a second point charge), carrying charges h1 and h2, whose centers are
separated by distance
the electric force  is determined by:
In this equation,  is a constant for converting units of charge and distance into units of force. If the
charges are measured in coulombs () and the distance in meters (), the electric force can be
calculated in newtons () with the conversion constant:
 1.0 x 10-9 2/2
The fact that electrical force decreases rapidly as the distance between the charges increases is
important in explaining another observation about static electricity. If a charged rod (whether positive
or negative) is brought near some uncharged bits of paper, the paper is initially attracted to the rod.
How can this happen? When a positively charged rod is brought near a neutral scrap of paper, the
electrons in each atom of the paper are drawn somewhat toward the rod and the nuclei, which are
positive, are pushed slightly away. This repositioning of the charges in the neutral scrap of paper is
called electrostatic induction. Because the electrons on the average will be slightly closer to the
positive rod than to the nuclei, the force of attraction will be somewhat larger than the force of
repulsion. Thus the paper experiences a net attractive force, and it is drawn toward the rod. A
negatively charged rod will also attract uncharged bits of paper, but the repositioning of charges in the
paper is reversed. Again, the attractive force will be somewhat larger than the repelling force.
Electrostatic air cleaners attract neutral dust particles to a charged screen by induction. The
electrostatic scrubbers used to clean the smoke produced by coal-burning power plants use the same
principle on a larger scale. Charging by induction also occurs when the lower, negatively charged
regions of thunderclouds induce a positive charge on the Earth's surface. If the charges become large
enough, the resistance of the air is overcome and lightning occurs (Ô Lightning).
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Charged objects can exert forces on uncharged objects over a distance. The electric field provides a
way to describe possible effects at a point in space about an electric charge. The electric field strength
at a point, c
is defined as the ratio of the electric force  on a test charge to the size of the test charge,
htest, placed at that point:
c /htest
(A test charge is an infinitesimal charge placed in an electric field to probe the strength of the field.)
This formula defines a specific value for c at each point in space. Regardless of the size of the test
charge, the ratio of electric force to htest will be a particular value at each position in the field.
The electric field strength is a vector quantity. Vectors have direction as well as magnitude. An
arrow can be used to represent the electric field strength: the stronger the field, the longer the arrow.
The direction of the electric field vector is taken to be the same as the direction of the electric force on
a positive test charge placed in the field. If the separate electric field vectors for many points in space
are joined, lines are obtained that give an overview of the electric field. These lines, called lines of
force, were conceived by the 19th-century English scientist Michael Faraday. Where these lines are
more concentrated, the field is stronger and the electric force on a test charge will be larger. If a
positive test charge is placed somewhere in the field, the force on that charge will be directed along a
line tangent to the field line. An especially simple electric field occurs in the space between two
oppositely charged flat plates. The field lines are equally spaced between the plates, showing that the
electric field strength is the same everywhere. Such a field is called a uniform electric field. An
electron placed in such a field at any spot in the field will accelerate at a constant rate toward the
positive plate because the electrical force on it is constant. (It should be noted that the electron, which
is negatively charged, moves in a direction opposite to that of the field lines.) If an electron enters a
uniform field parallel to the plates, it will veer toward the positive plate. The stronger the field is, the
more the deflection. Fields such as these are used to control the scan of the electron beam in
oscilloscope tubes.
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A positive test charge placed near a fixed positive point charge will accelerate away, increasing in
velocity and kinetic energy. Conversely, to move this positive test charge back toward the fixed
positive charge, work must be done on the test charge. The energy put into this process is stored as
electric potential energy by virtue of the new position of the test charge in the field. Electric potential
difference is a measure of this change in energy as the charge moves from one place to another in an
electric field. Mathematically it is given by:
The unit for measuring electric potential difference is the volt. Sometimes the electric potential
difference is called voltage. When there is no difference in electrical potential--that is, when there is
zero voltage--between points in a field, there is no tendency for electric charge to move between those
points. On the other hand, if there is a large potential difference between two points in a field, positive
electric charge will tend to move from higher to lower potential; negative charge would move the
opposite way.
A dry cell battery rated at 1.5 volts has an electric potential at the positive terminal that is 1.5 volts
above the negative. Frequently this potential difference is called the emf, or electromotive force, of
the battery, but this name is misleading because the voltage capacity is not really a force; the 1.5-volt
rating indicates the energy change per coulomb of electric charge moved between the terminals. Each
coulomb of charge moved between the terminals acquires 1.5 joules of energy. When connected by a
conductor--a material that does not inhibit the motion of electrons--electrons move away from the
negative dry-cell terminal (-) toward the positive terminal (+) through the conductor. The electrons
move in response to the electric field set up in the conductor. When the terminals of the battery are
connected by an insulator--a material in which electron motion is inhibited--the electrons in the
insulating medium are not moved very much. Because air is an insulator, electric charge does not
move between the terminals of the dry cell until they are connected by a conductor.
If the potential difference is very high, electric charge may be moved through the field even without
a good conductor. In the picture tube of a television set, for example, electrons ejected from a heated
electrode, called the cathode, are accelerated by a very high voltage (10,000 to 50,000 volts) and fly
through an evacuated tube, crashing into a screen coated with a fluorescent material to produce the
bursts of light that are seen as the picture. Such a tube is known as a cathode-ray tube, or CRT.
(Electrons at one time were called "cathode rays.") Cathode-ray tubes have many other applications--
for example, in the oscilloscopes used by medical personnel for displaying heartbeat and brain-wave
data.
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Electric current is the rate of charge motion. The moving charges may be electrons, protons, ions,
even positive "holes" in semiconductors. When the charge h is measured in coulombs and the time  in
seconds, the current will be expressed in amperes, which is defined as coulombs per second:
h/
A one-ampere current means that one coulomb of electric charge passes each point in the circuit
each second. Because each electron carries only 1.6 x 10-19 (1.6 10-quintillionths, or
1.6/10,000,000,000,000,000,000) coulomb of charge, the one-ampere current--normally used in the
operation of a 120-watt incandescent bulb--implies that in one second about 6 x 1018 (6 quintillion, or
6,000,000,000,000,000,000) electrons pass each point in the filament of the bulb. Traditionally, the
direction of electric current has been described as the direction of positive charge motion
(conventional current), even though in most circuits it is the electrons that actually move. Even though
electric charge moves through the filament of the bulb, the filament itself is not charged. The amount
of positive and negative charge in the filament is equal. The positive and negative charges are simply
moving in opposite directions relative to each other.
It is the quantity of electric current, or the amperage--not the potential difference, or voltage--that
can produce a lethal shock. Currents of less than 0.005 ampere that pass through the heart are not
likely to cause damage. Currents of about 0.1 ampere are usually fatal, even if endured for only one
second, but those above 1 ampere are frequently not fatal. The larger currents may stop the heart, but
often the heart will resume its normal beating when the current is halted.
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An electrochemical cell, or battery, can be used to provide a flow of electrons. A simple cell can be
made from strips of zinc (Zn) and copper (Cu) metal suspended in a salt solution. Prior to connecting
the strips by a conductor, a dynamic equilibrium exists at each metal surface. Some zinc atoms lose a
pair of electrons, becoming Zn2+ ions. The electrons remain on the zinc metal, while the Zn2+ moves
into the solution. The reverse process occurs at an equal rate: Zn2+ ions gain two electrons and adhere
to the zinc strip as zinc atoms. A similar equilibrium exists1?

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1From Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia Deluxe © 1998 The Learning Company, Inc.