Electricity —II

Electricity —II  

Hey Friends, I am back with my post on Electricity part 2! In my previous post, I spoke about what is electricity, electric circuit and a simple circuit. As mentioned, today I will tell you, what I think of voltage and watts, and of course our great Michael Faraday and Alessandro Volta.

First, let’s talk about what is voltage?......(According to the textbook)

The voltage is a kind of electrical force that makes electricity move through a wire and we measure it in volts. The bigger the voltage, the more current will tend to flow. Voltage does not, itself, go anywhere: it's quite wrong to talk about voltage "flowing through" things. (ref: www.explainthatstuff.com)

      Huh! My Goodness!!!!!! It is so difficult to understand these things. Let me make it simple for you. Let’s get back to our garbage truck! If I look into the truck, the speed-O-meter on the dash board, according to me, is the voltage because it tells you how much energy can be consumed. In short, Voltage is the POTENTIAL ENERGY!!!!

(Potential Energy - is the energy stored in an object, and CAN become into Kinetic Energy.

Kinetic Energy – is the energy caused by movement)

      Now, let’s talk about what is watts?........(according to the textbook)

The energy used by a circuit is measured in Watts. It is the way, we measure the power.

If I have to get back to the garbage truck, the used speed on the speed-o-meter is the Watts. That is, if my truck is moving on the speed of 30 KMPH, that speed is my Watts. In short, the watts; is the kinetic energy.  

      

Voltage, we know is the potential energy; was discovered by Alessandro Volta. The full name of Alessandro Volta is Count Alessandro Volta. He was born in Como, Italy; in the year 1745. He was a physicist and one of the pioneers in the study of electricity. One of his first inventions was attraction of electrical fluid; his next was nitrous gas. Cool, right? In the 1800s he invented the first electrical battery which people called the “voltaic pile”.

Whoooooaaaaaaa! One important invention in the history of science! With this important invention, scientists found a new way to produce a steady flow of electric current unleashing a wave of new technologies and discoveries. Volta was also the first one to discover methane (dictionary.com …. a colourless odourless flammable gas, the simplest alkane and the main constituent of natural gas: used as a fuel)

hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha..............

mixed with air can be exploded using an electric spark. He discovered that the best two metals to make a steady flow of electricity are zinc and silver, which gave way to the concept of “contact electricity”.

Due to the important electric inventions, the unit of electric potential called Volt, is named after this great physicist.            

     

TThe next great British physicist is Michael Faraday; the one who made the first few electrical inventions in history. Faraday was born in England in 1791 in a family which was not well off. Faraday did not have the pleasure to attend high school or college. He also had a least understanding of technical mathematical concepts, yet the smarty pants was still able to produce some of the most important scientific concepts in history, and that too in the most easy language. His most important finding was the ELECTROMAGNETISM – which was the link formed between electricity and magnets. One of his inventions are the Faraday cage. 

What is the Faraday cage?.... It is the hollow space of an electrical conductor, which keeps the person or any object inside the empty space safe from the intense electric fields outside the conductor. How cool it would be to have a protective cover around us for ever!

Faraday was a man of honor who was strong in his convictions. He rejected both a knighthood and an offer to become President of the Royal Society as well turning down a burial in Westminster Abbey. He also refused to assist the British government in the production of chemical weapons for use in war.

(http://www.sciencekids.co.nz)

God! I had to go to so many websites and YouTube videos to understand these concepts. It was a very educational journey for me and I hope it will be for you as well.

   

Electricity

  

Electricity

Electricity, as we all know is a source of energy, which we use in our daily life. As electricity serves as a positive source it also has a negative side to it. Everything around us has something positive and negative to look forward to in life. For example, me starting to write blogs. How ???? …..Well! Blogging, is a positive out come from a negative event. But that is beside the point. Today, I am going to talk about ELECTRICITY, a phenomenon which is taken for granted by each one of us.

Firstly, What is Electricity?...According to the book !

Electricity is a flow of electrons around a circuit.

 Aaarrrggghhhh!!! This is so complicated to understand. Now guys, this is MY version of What is Electricity??????

EEEEEEEWWWWW!!!!!! Guys! Have you’ll seen a GARBAGE TRUCK?  I’m sure you must have. Here! It looks like this……

                 

It is GROSSSSSSSS, isn't it?????

This garbage truck according to me, is electricity itself; carrying trash in it (where trash is the negative charge called electrons) moving on a designated path running towards the positive end. 

This process keeps moving in a cycle. The electricity keeps moving on its designated path and creates useable energy.

I don’t know if I am right….. maybe my Unnati mam can shed some light on this!! 

Now, after understanding what electricity is, let’s see,

What is an electric circuit?.... According to the text book

An electric circuit is a physical conductor, like a copper wire; which allows electricity to flow from negative to positive.

OH! Benjamin Franklin, you are sitting in heaven but we are suffering because of you. Now, we are made to study this complicated stuff and wreck our brains.       

Once again, I will tell you MY version of an electric circuit. According to me an electric circuit is the road on which the stinky garbage truck moves on. 

My darling electricity! You just need to kiss my skin and Oooooooooouch! It’s going to stink!!!!! Just like the garbage truck.

NOW, that we know what is an electric circuit, here’s another one — A simple circuit…. Again, first the text book version……

A simple electrical circuit; this circuit has a power source (like a battery), a complete path for electrons to flow(like a copper wire), and a bulb to light up.

Oops, oops, oops!!! Too much of information for a little brain! 

Let me tell you my version of the story again. The stinky garbage truck, which picks up the stinky poopy garbage; from my building to the landfill. If this movement of the truck keeps repeating on the same route then it will be like a simple circuit. I hope I am making some sense, friends!!! I will talk about
Voltage and Watts; Alessandro and Faraday in Part 2.

A Horse without a Skeleton!

Our teacher had assigned a combined project, which included literacy and science. It had been given a week ago. But, the lazy Gomes that I was, I kept on delaying it. Finally, came the day, when I had to submit the project.  

        

        Oh my God! What a chaos it was! My mom started pestering me to complete my work. The usual scene STARTED! “Hussain, sit with dad and complete your project”. My mom was panicking as I had only one night left to complete my project. As time was passing by, my mom had started to look like a hamster on a wheel, moving up and down the house. Finally, I took a rough book, and finalized the topic — “A Horse without a Skeleton”.

          My dad refused to make me write the story. Instead, we brainstormed about the topic. Gosh! He was soooooooo difficult! It was just like a cockatoo pecking on my head! However, there was an Ah ha!! Moment, when I got the idea of the mutated baby horse, from a movie, “Hills have eyes” on the HBO channel. (that is a very interesting movie, you should watch it) But still there was a lot of confusion on how to start and end the story. Finally, my mom intervened and gave us a template to work on. The template looked something like this —

Click on the picture to enlarge it

  Wow! Doesn’t this look eye-catching???....... Now, this is the rough work that I did painstakingly. Oh my my! Quite some work to do. I felt like a bull churning out sugarcane juice slowly! But, it was all worth it. My story turned out pretty good.  At least I think so!!! …… You guys read my story and let me know, if it was really good!

Click on the picture to enlarge it and read

 Thank you people for reading my blog posts. I would wait to hear from you........to know how you liked my story.