Facts all about electricity!

Ancient Egyptians

Long before electricity was commonplace, people were aware of the power of electricity through lightning and shocks from electric fish.

Ancient Egyptian texts refer to these fish as the “Thunderers of the Nile”.

Patients suffering from headaches or illnesses like gout were told to touch electric fish in the hope that a powerful jolt might cure them. But DON’T try this at home!

DID YOU KNOW – Whilst lightening certainly looks impressive, and with over 16m storms every year and with each lightening bolt unleashing c. 500 million joules of energy. That’s not enough to be of use to us if we could harness it. 500 million joules is equivalent to the daily consumption of just 2 households!

http://www.thegreenmechanics.com/2012/04/could-lightning-be-used-as-source-of.html

What is electricity made of? Electricity is the flow of electrons through a conducting material from a negative electrode o the positive. That direction might seem odd but electrons are negatively charged and therefore attract to positives. An electrical current come about through electrons bumping into their neighbours. Each particle itself barley moves, but the signal that propagates the movement is near the speed of light.

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blelectric1.htm

Lightning

We all know that lightning looks impressive – lighting up the sky and not forgetting the boom of thunder.

Well, even though there are over 16 million lightning storms every year and with each lightning bolt unleashes around 500 million joules of energy, that’s not enough to be of any real use – that’s if we could even harness it!

500 million joules is equivalent to the daily consumption of just two households!

Electricity

You cannot see it or smell it – and certainly should NEVER try and touch it. So what is electricity?

Basically, it’s the flow of electrons through a conducting material, flowing from a negative to a positive. This is because electrons are negatively charged and therefore are always attracted to positives.

An electrical current is created from the electrons bumping into each other. Whilst each particle barely moves, the signal that is created from each small movement is near the speed of light.

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