Electricity - Wikipedia
Electricity - Wikipedia
Electricity plays a central role in many modern technologies, serving Lightning (pictured) and urban lighting are
in electric power where electric current is used to energise some of the most dramatic effects of
equipment, and in electronics dealing with electrical circuits electricity
involving active components such as vacuum tubes, transistors,
diodes and integrated circuits, and associated passive
interconnection technologies.
The study of electrical phenomena dates back to antiquity, with theoretical understanding progressing slowly
until the 17th and 18th centuries. The development of the theory of electromagnetism in the 19th century
marked significant progress, leading to electricity's industrial and residential application by electrical
engineers by the century's end. This rapid expansion in electrical technology at the time was the driving force
behind the Second Industrial Revolution, with electricity's versatility driving transformations in both industry
and society. Electricity is integral to applications spanning transport, heating, lighting, communications, and
computation, making it the foundation of modern industrial society.[1]
History
Long before any knowledge of electricity existed, people were aware of shocks
from electric fish. Ancient Egyptian texts dating from 2750 BCE described them
as the "protectors" of all other fish. Electric fish were again reported millennia
later by ancient Greek, Roman and Arabic naturalists and physicians.[2] Several
ancient writers, such as Pliny the Elder and Scribonius Largus, attested to the
numbing effect of electric shocks delivered by electric catfish and electric rays,
and knew that such shocks could travel along conducting objects.[3] Patients with
ailments such as gout or headache were directed to touch electric fish in the hope
that the powerful jolt might cure them.[4]
Ancient cultures around the Mediterranean knew that certain objects, such as
rods of amber, could be rubbed with cat's fur to attract light objects like feathers. Thales, the earliest known
Thales of Miletus made a series of observations on static electricity around 600 researcher into electricity
BCE, from which he believed that friction rendered amber magnetic, in contrast
to minerals such as magnetite, which needed no rubbing.[5][6][7][8] Thales was incorrect in believing the
attraction was due to a magnetic effect, but later science would prove a link between magnetism and
electricity. According to a controversial theory, the Parthians may have had knowledge of electroplating, based
on the 1936 discovery of the Baghdad Battery, which resembles a galvanic cell, though it is uncertain whether
the artefact was electrical in nature.[9]
Electricity would remain little more than an intellectual curiosity for millennia
until 1600, when the English scientist William Gilbert wrote De Magnete, in
which he made a careful study of electricity and magnetism, distinguishing the
lodestone effect from static electricity produced by rubbing amber.[5] He coined
the Neo-Latin word electricus ("of amber" or "like amber", from ἤλεκτρον,
elektron, the Greek word for "amber") to refer to the property of attracting small
objects after being rubbed.[10] This association gave rise to the English words
"electric" and "electricity", which made their first appearance in print in Thomas
Browne's Pseudodoxia Epidemica of 1646.[11] Isaac Newton made early
investigations into electricity,[12] with an idea of his written down in his book
Opticks arguably the beginning of the field theory of the electric force.[13]
Benjamin Franklin
conducted extensive
Further work was conducted in the 17th and early 18th centuries by Otto von
research on electricity in the Guericke, Robert Boyle, Stephen Gray and C. F. du Fay.[14] Later in the 18th
18th century, as century, Benjamin Franklin conducted extensive research in electricity, selling his
documented by Joseph possessions to fund his work. In June 1752 he is reputed to have attached a metal
Priestley (1767) History and key to the bottom of a dampened kite string and flown the kite in a storm-
Present Status of threatened sky.[15] A succession of sparks jumping from the key to the back of his
Electricity, with whom
hand showed that lightning was indeed electrical in nature.[16] He also explained
Franklin carried on
extended correspondence.
the apparently paradoxical behavior[17] of the Leyden jar as a device for storing
large amounts of electrical charge in terms of electricity consisting of both
positive and negative charges.[14]
While the early 19th century had seen rapid progress in electrical science, the late
19th century would see the greatest progress in electrical engineering. Through such people as Alexander
Graham Bell, Ottó Bláthy, Thomas Edison, Galileo Ferraris, Oliver Heaviside, Ányos Jedlik, William
Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, Charles Algernon Parsons, Werner von Siemens, Joseph Swan, Reginald
Fessenden, Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse, electricity turned from a scientific curiosity into an
essential tool for modern life.[24]
In 1887, Heinrich Hertz[25]: 843–44 [26] discovered that electrodes illuminated with ultraviolet light create
electric sparks more easily. In 1905, Albert Einstein published a paper that explained experimental data from
the photoelectric effect as being the result of light energy being carried in discrete quantized packets,
energising electrons. This discovery led to the quantum revolution. Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize in
Physics in 1921 for "his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect".[27] The photoelectric effect is also
employed in photocells such as can be found in solar panels.
The first solid-state device was the "cat's-whisker detector" first used in the 1900s in radio receivers. A
whisker-like wire is placed lightly in contact with a solid crystal (such as a germanium crystal) to detect a
radio signal by the contact junction effect.[28] In a solid-state component, the current is confined to solid
elements and compounds engineered specifically to switch and amplify it. Current flow can be understood in
two forms: as negatively charged electrons, and as positively charged electron deficiencies called holes. These
charges and holes are understood in terms of quantum physics. The building material is most often a
crystalline semiconductor.[29][30]
Solid-state electronics came into its own with the emergence of transistor technology. The first working
transistor, a germanium-based point-contact transistor, was invented by John Bardeen and Walter Houser
Brattain at Bell Labs in 1947,[31] followed by the bipolar junction transistor in 1948.[32]
Concepts
Electric charge
By modern convention, the charge carried by electrons is defined as negative, and
that by protons is positive.[33] Before these particles were discovered, Benjamin
Franklin had defined a positive charge as being the charge acquired by a glass rod
when it is rubbed with a silk cloth.[34] A proton by definition carries a charge of
exactly 1.602 176 634 × 10−19 coulombs. This value is also defined as the
elementary charge. No object can have a charge smaller than the elementary
charge, and any amount of charge an object may carry is a multiple of the
elementary charge. An electron has an equal negative charge, i.e.
−1.602 176 634 × 10−19 coulombs. Charge is possessed not just by matter, but also
by antimatter, each antiparticle bearing an equal and opposite charge to its
corresponding particle.[35]
Charge on a gold-leaf
The presence of charge gives rise to an electrostatic force: charges exert a force on electroscope causes the
each other, an effect that was known, though not understood, in antiquity. [25]: 457 leaves to visibly repel each
A lightweight ball suspended by a fine thread can be charged by touching it with a other
glass rod that has itself been charged by rubbing with a cloth. If a similar ball is
charged by the same glass rod, it is found to repel the first: the charge acts to
force the two balls apart. Two balls that are charged with a rubbed amber rod also repel each other. However,
if one ball is charged by the glass rod, and the other by an amber rod, the two balls are found to attract each
other. These phenomena were investigated in the late eighteenth century by Charles-Augustin de Coulomb,
who deduced that charge manifests itself in two opposing forms. This discovery led to the well-known axiom:
like-charged objects repel and opposite-charged objects attract.[25]
The force acts on the charged particles themselves, hence charge has a tendency to spread itself as evenly as
possible over a conducting surface. The magnitude of the electromagnetic force, whether attractive or
repulsive, is given by Coulomb's law, which relates the force to the product of the charges and has an inverse-
square relation to the distance between them.[36][37]: 35 The electromagnetic force is very strong, second only
in strength to the strong interaction,[38] but unlike that force it operates over all distances.[39] In comparison
with the much weaker gravitational force, the electromagnetic force pushing two electrons apart is 1042 times
that of the gravitational attraction pulling them together.[40]
Charge originates from certain types of subatomic particles, the most familiar carriers of which are the
electron and proton. Electric charge gives rise to and interacts with the electromagnetic force, one of the four
fundamental forces of nature. Experiment has shown charge to be a conserved quantity, that is, the net charge
within an electrically isolated system will always remain constant regardless of any changes taking place
within that system.[41] Within the system, charge may be transferred between bodies, either by direct contact
or by passing along a conducting material, such as a wire.[37]: 2–5 The informal term static electricity refers to
the net presence (or 'imbalance') of charge on a body, usually caused when dissimilar materials are rubbed
together, transferring charge from one to the other.
Charge can be measured by a number of means, an early instrument being the gold-leaf electroscope, which
although still in use for classroom demonstrations, has been superseded by the electronic electrometer.[37]: 2–5
Electric current
The movement of electric charge is known as an electric current, the intensity of which is usually measured in
amperes. Current can consist of any moving charged particles; most commonly these are electrons, but any
charge in motion constitutes a current. Electric current can flow through some things, electrical conductors,
but will not flow through an electrical insulator.[42]
By historical convention, a positive current is defined as having the same direction of flow as any positive
charge it contains, or to flow from the most positive part of a circuit to the most negative part. Current defined
in this manner is called conventional current. The motion of negatively charged electrons around an electric
circuit, one of the most familiar forms of current, is thus deemed positive in the opposite direction to that of
the electrons.[43] However, depending on the conditions, an electric current can consist of a flow of charged
particles in either direction or even in both directions at once. The positive-to-negative convention is widely
used to simplify this situation.
In engineering or household applications, current is often described as being either direct current (DC) or
alternating current (AC). These terms refer to how the current varies in time. Direct current, as produced by
example from a battery and required by most electronic devices, is a unidirectional flow from the positive part
of a circuit to the negative.[46]: 11 If, as is most common, this flow is carried by electrons, they will be travelling
in the opposite direction. Alternating current is any current that reverses direction repeatedly; almost always
this takes the form of a sine wave.[46]: 206–07 Alternating current thus pulses back and forth within a
conductor without the charge moving any net distance over time. The time-averaged value of an alternating
current is zero, but it delivers energy in first one direction, and then the reverse. Alternating current is
affected by electrical properties that are not observed under steady state direct current, such as inductance
and capacitance.[46]: 223–25 These properties however can become important when circuitry is subjected to
transients, such as when first energised.
Electric field
The concept of the electric field was introduced by Michael Faraday. An electric field is created by a charged
body in the space that surrounds it, and results in a force exerted on any other charges placed within the field.
The electric field acts between two charges in a similar manner to the way that the gravitational field acts
between two masses, and like it, extends towards infinity and shows an inverse square relationship with
distance.[39] However, there is an important difference. Gravity always acts in attraction, drawing two masses
together, while the electric field can result in either attraction or repulsion. Since large bodies such as planets
generally carry no net charge, the electric field at a distance is usually zero. Thus gravity is the dominant force
at distance in the universe, despite being much weaker.[40]
An electric field generally varies in space,[b] and its strength at any one
point is defined as the force (per unit charge) that would be felt by a
stationary, negligible charge if placed at that point.[25]: 469–70 The
conceptual charge, termed a 'test charge', must be vanishingly small to
prevent its own electric field disturbing the main field and must also be
stationary to prevent the effect of magnetic fields. As the electric field is
defined in terms of force, and force is a vector, having both magnitude and
direction, it follows that an electric field is a vector field.[25]: 469–70
The study of electric fields created by stationary charges is called Field lines emanating from a
electrostatics. The field may be visualised by a set of imaginary lines whose positive charge above a plane
direction at any point is the same as that of the field. This concept was conductor
introduced by Faraday,[47] whose term 'lines of force' still sometimes sees
use. The field lines are the paths that a point positive charge would seek to
make as it was forced to move within the field; they are however an imaginary concept with no physical
existence, and the field permeates all the intervening space between the lines.[47] Field lines emanating from
stationary charges have several key properties: first, they originate at positive charges and terminate at
negative charges; second, they must enter any good conductor at right angles, and third, they may never cross
nor close in on themselves.[25]: 479
A hollow conducting body carries all its charge on its outer surface. The field is therefore 0 at all places inside
the body.[37]: 88 This is the operating principle of the Faraday cage, a conducting metal shell that isolates its
interior from outside electrical effects.
The principles of electrostatics are important when designing items of high-voltage equipment. There is a
finite limit to the electric field strength that may be withstood by any medium. Beyond this point, electrical
breakdown occurs and an electric arc causes flashover between the charged parts. Air, for example, tends to
arc across small gaps at electric field strengths which exceed 30 kV per centimetre. Over larger gaps, its
breakdown strength is weaker, perhaps 1 kV per centimetre.[48]: 2 The most visible natural occurrence of this
is lightning, caused when charge becomes separated in the clouds by rising columns of air, and raises the
electric field in the air to greater than it can withstand. The voltage of a large lightning cloud may be as high as
100 MV and have discharge energies as great as 250 kWh.[48]: 201–02
The field strength is greatly affected by nearby conducting objects, and it is particularly intense when it is
forced to curve around sharply pointed objects. This principle is exploited in the lightning conductor, the
sharp spike of which acts to encourage the lightning strike to develop there, rather than to the building it
serves to protect.[49]: 155
Electric potential
The concept of electric potential is closely linked to that of the electric
field. A small charge placed within an electric field experiences a force, and
to have brought that charge to that point against the force requires work.
The electric potential at any point is defined as the energy required to
bring a unit test charge from an infinite distance slowly to that point. It is
usually measured in volts, and one volt is the potential for which one joule
of work must be expended to bring a charge of one coulomb from
infinity.[25]: 494–98 This definition of potential, while formal, has little
practical application, and a more useful concept is that of electric potential
difference, and is the energy required to move a unit charge between two
specified points. The electric field is conservative, which means that the
path taken by the test charge is irrelevant: all paths between two specified
points expend the same energy, and thus a unique value for potential
difference may be stated.[25]: 494–98 The volt is so strongly identified as the A pair of AA cells. The + sign
unit of choice for measurement and description of electric potential indicates the polarity of the potential
difference that the term voltage sees greater everyday usage. difference between the battery
terminals.
For practical purposes, defining a common reference point to which
potentials may be expressed and compared is useful. While this could be at
infinity, a much more useful reference is the Earth itself, which is assumed to be at the same potential
everywhere. This reference point naturally takes the name earth or ground. Earth is assumed to be an infinite
source of equal amounts of positive and negative charge and is therefore electrically uncharged—and
unchargeable.[50]
Electric potential is a scalar quantity. That is, it has only magnitude and not direction. It may be viewed as
analogous to height: just as a released object will fall through a difference in heights caused by a gravitational
field, so a charge will 'fall' across the voltage caused by an electric field.[51] As relief maps show contour lines
marking points of equal height, a set of lines marking points of equal potential (known as equipotentials) may
be drawn around an electrostatically charged object. The equipotentials cross all lines of force at right angles.
They must also lie parallel to a conductor's surface, since otherwise there would be a force along the surface of
the conductor that would move the charge carriers to even the potential across the surface.
The electric field was formally defined as the force exerted per unit charge, but the concept of potential allows
for a more useful and equivalent definition: the electric field is the local gradient of the electric potential.
Usually expressed in volts per metre, the vector direction of the field is the line of greatest slope of potential,
and where the equipotentials lie closest together.[37]: 60
Electromagnets
Ørsted's discovery in 1821 that a magnetic field existed around all sides of
a wire carrying an electric current indicated that there was a direct
relationship between electricity and magnetism. Moreover, the interaction
seemed different from gravitational and electrostatic forces, the two forces
of nature then known. The force on the compass needle did not direct it to
or away from the current-carrying wire, but acted at right angles to
it.[23]: 370 Ørsted's words were that "the electric conflict acts in a revolving
manner." The force also depended on the direction of the current, for if the
flow was reversed, then the force did too.[52]
Ørsted did not fully understand his discovery, but he observed the effect
was reciprocal: a current exerts a force on a magnet, and a magnetic field
Magnetic field circles around a exerts a force on a current. The phenomenon was further investigated by
current Ampère, who discovered that two parallel current-carrying wires exerted a
force upon each other: two wires conducting currents in the same
direction are attracted to each other, while wires containing currents in opposite directions are forced
apart.[53] The interaction is mediated by the magnetic field each current produces and forms the basis for the
international definition of the ampere.[53]
Electric circuits
An electric circuit is an interconnection of electric components such that
electric charge is made to flow along a closed path (a circuit), usually to
perform some useful task.[56]
The components in an electric circuit can take many forms, which can
include elements such as resistors, capacitors, switches, transformers and
electronics. Electronic circuits contain active components, usually
semiconductors, and typically exhibit non-linear behaviour, requiring
complex analysis. The simplest electric components are those that are A basic electric circuit. The voltage
termed passive and linear: while they may temporarily store energy, they source V on the left drives a current
contain no sources of it, and exhibit linear responses to stimuli.[57]: 15–16 I around the circuit, delivering
electrical energy into the resistor R.
The resistor is perhaps the simplest of passive circuit elements: as its From the resistor, the current
name suggests, it resists the current through it, dissipating its energy as returns to the source, completing
the circuit.
heat. The resistance is a consequence of the motion of charge through a
conductor: in metals, for example, resistance is primarily due to collisions
between electrons and ions. Ohm's law is a basic law of circuit theory, stating that the current passing through
a resistance is directly proportional to the potential difference across it. The resistance of most materials is
relatively constant over a range of temperatures and currents; materials under these conditions are known as
'ohmic'. The ohm, the unit of resistance, was named in honour of Georg Ohm, and is symbolised by the Greek
letter Ω. 1 Ω is the resistance that will produce a potential difference of one volt in response to a current of one
amp.[57]: 30–35
The capacitor is a development of the Leyden jar and is a device that can store charge, and thereby storing
electrical energy in the resulting field. It consists of two conducting plates separated by a thin insulating
dielectric layer; in practice, thin metal foils are coiled together, increasing the surface area per unit volume
and therefore the capacitance. The unit of capacitance is the farad, named after Michael Faraday, and given
the symbol F: one farad is the capacitance that develops a potential difference of one volt when it stores a
charge of one coulomb. A capacitor connected to a voltage supply initially causes a current as it accumulates
charge; this current will however decay in time as the capacitor fills, eventually falling to zero. A capacitor will
therefore not permit a steady state current, but instead blocks it.[57]: 216–20
The inductor is a conductor, usually a coil of wire, that stores energy in a magnetic field in response to the
current through it. When the current changes, the magnetic field does too, inducing a voltage between the
ends of the conductor. The induced voltage is proportional to the time rate of change of the current. The
constant of proportionality is termed the inductance. The unit of inductance is the henry, named after Joseph
Henry, a contemporary of Faraday. One henry is the inductance that will induce a potential difference of one
volt if the current through it changes at a rate of one ampere per second. The inductor's behaviour is in some
regards converse to that of the capacitor: it will freely allow an unchanging current but opposes a rapidly
changing one.[57]: 226–29
Electric power
Electric power is the rate at which electric energy is transferred by an electric circuit. The SI unit of power is
the watt, one joule per second.
Electric power, like mechanical power, is the rate of doing work, measured in watts, and represented by the
letter P. The term wattage is used colloquially to mean "electric power in watts." The electric power in watts
produced by an electric current I consisting of a charge of Q coulombs every t seconds passing through an
electric potential (voltage) difference of V is
where
Electric power is generally supplied to businesses and homes by the electric power industry. Electricity is
usually sold by the kilowatt hour (3.6 MJ) which is the product of power in kilowatts multiplied by running
time in hours. Electric utilities measure power using electricity meters, which keep a running total of the
electric energy delivered to a customer. Unlike fossil fuels, electricity is a low entropy form of energy and can
be converted into motion or many other forms of energy with high efficiency.[58]
Electronics
Electronics deals with electrical circuits that involve active electrical
components such as vacuum tubes, transistors, diodes, sensors and
integrated circuits, and associated passive interconnection
technologies.[59]: 1–5, 71 The nonlinear behaviour of active components and
their ability to control electron flows makes digital switching
possible,[59]: 75 and electronics is widely used in information processing,
telecommunications, and signal processing. Interconnection technologies
such as circuit boards, electronics packaging technology, and other varied
forms of communication infrastructure complete circuit functionality and Surface-mount electronic
transform the mixed components into a regular working system. components
The work of many researchers enabled the use of electronics to convert signals into high frequency oscillating
currents and, via suitably shaped conductors, electricity permits the transmission and reception of these
signals via radio waves over very long distances.[62]
Demand for electricity grows with great rapidity as a nation modernises and its economy develops.[66] The
United States showed a 12% increase in demand during each year of the first three decades of the twentieth
century,[67] a rate of growth that is now being experienced by emerging economies such as those of India or
China.[68][69]
Environmental concerns with electricity generation, in specific the contribution of fossil fuel burning to
climate change, have led to an increased focus on generation from renewable sources. In the power sector,
wind and solar have become cost effective, speeding up an energy transition away from fossil fuels.[70]
Transmission and storage
The invention in the late nineteenth century of the transformer meant that
electrical power could be transmitted more efficiently at a higher voltage
but lower current. Efficient electrical transmission meant in turn that
electricity could be generated at centralised power stations, where it
benefited from economies of scale, and then be despatched relatively long
distances to where it was needed.[71][72]
Normally, demand for electricity must match the supply, as storage of Wind power is of increasing
electricity is difficult. [71] A certain amount of generation must always be importance in many countries.
held in reserve to cushion an electrical grid against inevitable disturbances
and losses.[73] With increasing levels of variable renewable energy (wind
and solar energy) in the grid, it has become more challenging to match supply and demand. Storage plays an
increasing role in bridging that gap. There are four types of energy storage technologies, each in varying states
of technology readiness: batteries (electrochemical storage), chemical storage such as hydrogen, thermal or
mechanical (such as pumped hydropower).[74]
Applications
Electricity is a very convenient way to transfer energy, and it has been adapted to
a huge, and growing, number of uses.[75] The invention of a practical
incandescent light bulb in the 1870s led to lighting becoming one of the first
publicly available applications of electrical power. Although electrification
brought with it its own dangers, replacing the naked flames of gas lighting greatly
reduced fire hazards within homes and factories.[76] Public utilities were set up in
many cities targeting the burgeoning market for electrical lighting. In the late
20th century and in modern times, the trend has started to flow in the direction
of deregulation in the electrical power sector.[77]
The resistive Joule heating effect employed in filament light bulbs also sees more
direct use in electric heating. While this is versatile and controllable, it can be
seen as wasteful, since most electrical generation has already required the
production of heat at a power station.[78] A number of countries, such as
The incandescent light Denmark, have issued legislation restricting or banning the use of resistive
bulb, an early application of
electric heating in new buildings.[79] Electricity is however still a highly practical
electricity, operates by
Joule heating: the passage
energy source for heating and refrigeration,[80] with air conditioning/heat pumps
of current through representing a growing sector for electricity demand for heating and cooling, the
resistance generating heat. effects of which electricity utilities are increasingly obliged to
accommodate.[81][82] Electrification is expected to play a major role in the
decarbonisation of sectors that rely on direct fossil fuel burning, such as transport
(using electric vehicles) and heating (using heat pumps).[83][84]
The effects of electromagnetism are most visibly employed in the electric motor, which provides a clean and
efficient means of motive power. A stationary motor such as a winch is easily provided with a supply of power,
but a motor that moves with its application, such as an electric vehicle, is obliged to either carry along a power
source such as a battery or to collect current from a sliding contact such as a pantograph. Electrically powered
vehicles are used in public transportation, such as electric buses and trains,[85] and an increasing number of
battery-powered electric cars in private ownership.
Electricity is used within telecommunications, and indeed the electrical telegraph, demonstrated
commercially in 1837 by Cooke and Wheatstone,[86] was one of its earliest applications. With the construction
of first transcontinental, and then transatlantic, telegraph systems in the 1860s, electricity had enabled
communications in minutes across the globe. Optical fibre and satellite communication have taken a share of
the market for communications systems, but electricity can be expected to remain an essential part of the
process.
Electronic devices make use of the transistor, perhaps one of the most important inventions of the twentieth
century,[87] and a fundamental building block of all modern circuitry. A modern integrated circuit may
contain many billions of miniaturised transistors in a region only a few centimetres square.[88]
Physiological effects
A voltage applied to a human body causes an electric current through the tissues, and although the
relationship is non-linear, the greater the voltage, the greater the current.[89] The threshold for perception
varies with the supply frequency and with the path of the current, but is about 0.1 mA to 1 mA for mains-
frequency electricity, though a current as low as a microamp can be detected as an electrovibration effect
under certain conditions.[90] If the current is sufficiently high, it will cause muscle contraction, fibrillation of
the heart, and tissue burns.[89] The lack of any visible sign that a conductor is electrified makes electricity a
particular hazard. The pain caused by an electric shock can be intense, leading electricity at times to be
employed as a method of torture.[91] Death caused by an electric shock—electrocution—is still used for judicial
execution in some US states, though its use had become very rare by the end of the 20th century.[92]
Some organisms, such as sharks, are able to detect and respond to changes in electric fields, an ability known
as electroreception,[95] while others, termed electrogenic, are able to generate voltages themselves to serve as
a predatory or defensive weapon; these are electric fish in different orders.[3] The order Gymnotiformes, of
which the best-known example is the electric eel, detect or stun their prey via high voltages generated from
modified muscle cells called electrocytes.[3][4] All animals transmit information along their cell membranes
with voltage pulses called action potentials, whose functions include communication by the nervous system
between neurons and muscles.[96] An electric shock stimulates this system and causes muscles to contract.[97]
Action potentials are also responsible for coordinating activities in certain plants.[96]
Cultural perception
It is said that in the 1850s, British politician William Ewart Gladstone asked the scientist Michael Faraday
why electricity was valuable. Faraday answered, "One day sir, you may tax it."[98][99][100] However, according
to Snopes.com "the anecdote should be considered apocryphal because it isn't mentioned in any accounts by
Faraday or his contemporaries (letters, newspapers, or biographies) and only popped up well after Faraday's
death."[101]
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, electricity was not part of the everyday life of many people, even in the
industrialised Western world. The popular culture of the time accordingly often depicted it as a mysterious,
quasi-magical force that can slay the living, revive the dead or otherwise bend the laws of nature.[102]: 69 This
attitude began with the 1771 experiments of Luigi Galvani in which the legs of dead frogs were shown to twitch
on application of animal electricity. "Revitalization" or resuscitation of apparently dead or drowned persons
was reported in the medical literature shortly after Galvani's work. These results were known to Mary Shelley
when she authored Frankenstein (1819), although she does not name the method of revitalization of the
monster. The revitalization of monsters with electricity later became a stock theme in horror films.
As public familiarity with electricity as the lifeblood of the Second Industrial Revolution grew, its wielders
were more often cast in a positive light,[102]: 71 such as the workers who "finger death at their gloves' end as
they piece and repiece the living wires" in Rudyard Kipling's 1907 poem Sons of Martha.[102]: 71 Electrically
powered vehicles of every sort featured large in adventure stories such as those of Jules Verne and the Tom
Swift books.[102]: 71 The masters of electricity, whether fictional or real—including scientists such as Thomas
Edison, Charles Steinmetz or Nikola Tesla—were popularly conceived of as having wizard-like powers.[102]: 71
With electricity ceasing to be a novelty and becoming a necessity of everyday life in the later half of the 20th
century, it acquired particular attention by popular culture only when it stops flowing,[102]: 71 an event that
usually signals disaster.[102]: 71 The people who keep it flowing, such as the nameless hero of Jimmy Webb's
song "Wichita Lineman" (1968),[102]: 71 are still often cast as heroic, wizard-like figures.[102]: 71
See also
Energy portal
Electronics portal
Ampère's circuital law, connects the direction of an electric current and its associated magnetic currents.
Electric potential energy, the potential energy of a system of charges
Electricity market, the sale of electrical energy
Etymology of electricity, the origin of the word electricity and its current different usages
Hydraulic analogy, an analogy between the flow of water and electric current
Developmental bioelectricity – Electric current produced in living cells
Notes
a. Accounts differ as to whether this was before, during, or after a lecture.
b. Almost all electric fields vary in space. An exception is the electric field surrounding a planar conductor of
infinite extent, the field of which is uniform.
1. Jones, D.A. (1991), "Electrical engineering: the backbone of society", IEE Proceedings A - Science,
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External links
Basic Concepts of Electricity (http://www.ibiblio.org/kuphaldt/electricCircuits/DC/DC_1.html) chapter from
Lessons In Electric Circuits Vol 1 DC (http://www.ibiblio.org/kuphaldt/electricCircuits/DC/index.html) book
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"One-Hundred Years of Electricity", May 1931, Popular Mechanics (https://books.google.com/books?id=n-
MDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA772)
Socket and plug standards (https://www.worldstandards.eu/electricity/plugs-and-sockets/)
Electricity Misconceptions (http://amasci.com/miscon/elect.html)
Electricity and Magnetism (https://web.archive.org/web/20151201064159/http://www.micro.magnet.fsu.ed
u/electromag/java/diode/index.html)
Understanding Electricity and Electronics in about 10 Minutes (http://steverose.com/Articles/Understandin
gBasicElectri.html)