The 2 types of electricity (explained)
These are the types of electricity that exist, and their characteristics.
Electricity is the energy that moves our world. Contemporary society could not live without electricity, since it powers our electronic devices, washing machines, refrigerators and the most basic object in our lives, the light bulb.
Although electricity is no longer so mysterious in the 21st century, when it was "invented" it was a true revolution, in fact, it motivated the beginning of the second industrial revolution.
How many types of electricity are there? This is what we are going to find out below.
What is electricity?
Electricity is a type of energy that is a consequence of how matter is formed. Substances are composed of atoms, small balls that have subatomic particles. At its center we find neutrons and protons, while rotating around them we find electrons. It is these last particles that are responsible for electricity, negatively charged components of atoms.
Electrical energy is produced by the flow of electrons in a conductive material, usually a metal. This energy has been fundamental to contemporary life as we know it, since it is the energy that makes all our electronic devices work, from the most complex, such as the computer or cell phone with which you can read this article, to the simplest, such as the light bulb in our room.
Electricity is a phenomenon that is studied by electromagnetism, an area of physics. The electromagnetic force is one of the four fundamental forces of nature along with gravity and the weak and strong nuclear forces.. Today, electricity for human use is generated, transported, stored and consumed being transformed into other types of energy useful for modern life, such as thermal, kinetic, chemical and light energy.
Types of electricity
Although we could talk about different types of electricity according to the way it is produced or the use that is made of it in the end, there are really only two main types of electricity: dynamic and static.
1. Static electricity
As its name indicates, static electricity is the one in which current does not flow and, as a consequence, there is no magnetism.. This type of energy is produced in non-conductive materials, where the induced electric charge remains at rest. In other words, electricity "does not move" because no current can flow in non-conductive materials.
This type of electricity is produced in insulating materials which, when rubbed together, become electrically charged. This can be verified by a simple home experiment: if we take a rubber balloon and a piece of plastic, two conductive materials, and rub them together, an interesting situation arises. One loses some electrons, while the other ends up gaining them.. For this reason the balloon is able to stick to a wall, while the plastic piece is able to attract small pieces of paper.
Another example is taking a piece of amber and a woolen cloth. When these two objects are rubbed together, an electronic imbalance is produced in the amber which gives it an electrical charge. The friction causes electrons to travel from the cloth to the amber, causing the amber to become negatively charged and the cloth to become positively charged.
This charge will reside on the amber until it is balanced. The substance that loses electrons becomes positively charged, while the substance that gains electrons becomes negatively charged. These charges are temporary and remain on the surface of the material.
2. Dynamic electricity
Dynamic electricity is produced when electrons are released from a substance and flow into another material, as in the case of electricity.as is the case of the electricity that reaches us at home through our electric company. Electrons travel through an electrical circuit composed of conductive materials, such as the metal inside the wires.
The electric current is the flow of electrons through a material and can be of two types:
- Direct current (DC): electrons flow in one direction only, as in photovoltaic panels.
- Alternating current (AC): electrons continuously change direction from positive to negative, and this is the type of electricity supplied to our homes.
Dynamic electricity is the one we use most in our daily lives and is responsible for the fact that mankind has been able to advance at an astonishing rate in the last 150 years.. Thanks to this type of energy, specifically alternating current, the second industrial revolution could have originated.
Electromagnetic field
Electromagnetic fields are phenomena that occur due to electromagnetic interaction.. This type of field is composed of a combination of different phenomena:
- An electric field produced by a stationary electric charge.
- A magnetic field, produced by the movement of electric charges (current).
Electromagnetic fields are generated locally by any time-varying distribution of electric charge and electric current. The electromagnetic field propagates in space in the form of electromagnetic waves. An electric field can create a magnetic field as in an electromagnet. Conversely, a magnetic field can also cause an electric field, as in a generator..
Electricity in nature
There are several phenomena in nature in which we can find electricity. Next we are going to speak about a few phenomena in which we can find electricity in a natural way.
1. Lightning
The lightning that can be seen during a thunderstorm are caused by the unbalance of the electric potential between the atmosphere and the ground..
The friction of the clouds and water droplets with the air causes it to become charged with electrons, giving rise to static electricity. As a result of the whole process, the electricity that remains stored in the clouds is released through a rapid and violent discharge in the form of lightning.
Bioelectricity
Humans produce electricity artificially, but this does not mean that there are no animals that have the ability to produce this type of energy naturally. Some animals are capable of generating electric fields as a means of defense.A well-known example is that of electric rays and some species of eels.
Others, on the other hand, can perceive the magnetic fields generated by the electric charge inside their bodies and, thus, detect their prey, as is the case of sharks with their ampullae of Lorenzini. However, what most sharks have in common what most animals have in common is that we have nerve impulses with which our nervous system functions.which are a universal example in the animal kingdom of bioelectricity.
Earth's magnetosphere 3.
The earth has a magnetosphere, a magnetic field that is detected by compasses and that is produced by the rotational movement of our planet due to its heart. of our planet because its heart, the inner core, is made of iron. It is thanks to this magnetic field and the particles of different substances that reach us from the Sun that we can observe the aurora borealis and australis at the poles.
(Updated at Apr 12 / 2024)