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 HOBBYIST ELECTRICITY MISCON. GOOD STUFF NEW SEARCH

"ELECTRICITY" MISCONCEPTIONS IN K-6

TEXTBOOKS - - -William J. Beaty

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BEN FRANKLIN SHOULD HAVE SAID ELECTRONS ARE  
POSITIVE? Wrong.

Many authors bemoan the fact that Ben Franklin labeled "resinous
electricity" as negative, and "vitreous electricity" as positive. By
choosing the polarities this way, Franklin forces us to say that
electrons carry a charge of negative electricity. Because of
Franklin's decision, we must name the electric currents in solid
metals as flows of NEGATIVE charge rather than positive charge.

Did Franklin make a mistake? Should he have defined the electron

to be positive? ABSOLUTELY NOT. In fact it's a blessing, since these
flows of negative charge aren't inherently confusing. Franklin's
choice of polarity fortunately helps reveal the true source of
confusion: common and widespread misconceptions about
electrons and "electricity."

If Franklin had instead chosen the electrons to be positive, then we

might never confront the real problem. If electrons weren't
negative, we'd easily ignore our misconceptions, and we'd end up
with only an illusion of understanding. Yet also we'd still have all
sorts of niggling unanswered questions caused by the
misconceptions. Fortunately the negative electrons rub our noses
in the problem, making our questions grow into something far
more than just "niggling!"

The solution isn't to ignore our discomfort and pretend that we

understand electricity. The solution is to confront the source of our
discomfort. If we dislike negative currents, or if we find them to be
confusing or wrong, it's because our misconceptions are in there,
fighting back. Loose the misconceptions, and we lose the confusion.

What are the misconceptions? Here is a list:

1. All electric currents are flows of electrons. Wrong.

2. "Electricity" is made of electrons, not protons. Nope.
3. Electrons are a kind of energy particle. Wrong.
4. "Electricity" carries zero mass because electrons have little
mass. No.
5. Positive charge is really just a loss of electrons. Wrong.
6. Positive charge cannot flow. Totally wrong.
7. To create "static" charge, we move the electrons. Not always.
These seven statements are misconceptions. We have Ben Franklin
to thank for rubbing our noses in this fact. If he'd chosen the
polarities so electrons came out positive, we'd be much more
comfortable. We might never even notice our errors.

Here are the corrections for the above seven mistakes:

 
1. All electric currents are flows of electrons? Wrong.

Electric currents are not always flows of electrons,

they can be flows of any type of electric charge. It
depends on the type of conductor. Both protons and
electrons possess exactly the same amount of
'electricity.' If either the protons or the electrons flow,
that flow is an electric current. Yes, in solid metals,
electrons do the flowing. But this isn't true for other
types of conductor. For example, in salt water, in
fluorescent bulbs, in the dirt and in human bodies,
atoms with extra protons can flow along, and this
flow is a genuine electric current. And in battery
acid, fuel cell membranes, and in solid ice, the
electric current is actually a flow of positive
hydrogen ions, also called single protons. (Go and
look up "proton conductor," also the Grotthuss
process of proton-jumping electric current.)

2. "Electricity" is made of electrons, not protons? Nope.

Charges of "electricity" are carried both by electrons

and by protons. These two types of particles have
very different weights (mass), but both have exactly
the same amount of electric charge. Electrons are
easily removed from atoms, while protons usually
are stuck to other protons, but that doesn't affect the
amount of charge protons carry. If we remove an
electron from a neutral atom, that atom is left with
too many protons, and that's the only reason why the
atom has an excess of positive electric charge.
(Visualize a hydrogen atom, then remove the
electron. It's a pure proton!) Positive charge isn't
"really just a lack of electrons." Instead, *all* positive
charges in objects and in circuits are created by
protons. Removing an electron just reveals the
positive charge which was already hidden in the
atom. (Think like this: neutral atoms are made from
 "cancelled electricity." If the protons don't equal the
electrons, then we'll see some "uncancelled
electricity," caused by either the positive protons or
negative electrons.)

3. Electrons are a kind of energy particle? Wrong.

Electrons and protons are matter, not energy. A flow

of electrons is NOT a flow of energy, it is a flow of
matter and a flow of electric charge. Same goes for
protons: moving protons are electric current, but
they're also a matter-flow. And most important: if
you have a certain amount of charge in one place,
you'll have no clue about the amount of energy
present. Charge is not energy. And if charge is
flowing along, you won't know anything about the
direction or the rate of the energy's flow. Coulombs
are not Joules, and knowing the amount charge does
not tell you the amount of energy present. A moving
electron does not carry electrical energy along with
it as it goes, any more than a moving air molecule
carries a sound wave with it. (Charge is the medium,
and electrical energy is wave-energy.)

4. "Electricity" carries zero mass because electrons have little

mass? No.

Quantities of "Electricity" (meaning charge) have

weight because charge is part of matter particles. A
flow of charge always requires a flow of carrier
particles, so electric current must always carry mass
with it. Electric currents in a wire are not a flow of
energy, they're a flow of electrically charged matter.
Ion currents in an electroplating bath are a flow of
considerable amounts of matter: electric currents
can transport material and deposit matter onto
electrodes. However, in normal circuits we rarely
notice the moving mass. There are two reasons for
this: the flow is circular, so an electric current
doesn't need to build up extra mass anywhere.
Secondly, the flow is very very slow, so even if the
current were moving an enormous amount of mass,
we'd never notice this.
5. Positive charge is really just a loss of electrons? Wrong.

Positive charge is not made of "missing electrons."

Positive charge is a genuine type of charge in its own
right. Take a neutral hydrogen atom, remove one
electron, and we now have positive charge: a proton.
Not "missing electrons." Yes, whenever protons and
electrons are near each other, their charges cancel.
Removing the electrons from neutral matter exposes
the charge on the protons, and that's probably where
this particular misconception originates. Neutral
materials contain "canceled-out" protons and
electrons in equal quantities. Since neutral atoms
receive a positive imbalance of charge when their
electrons are removed, is seems like positive charge
is nothing but missing electrons. But this is wrong.
The protons were already there, just hidden.
Removing the electrons just un-canceled them. If we
have a handful of protons, we have a handful of
positive charge. A proton is not a missing electron,
any more than an electron is a "missing proton." And
if we have a vacuum (which is filled with "missing
electrons,") that doesn't imply that positive charges
are present.

6. Positive charge cannot flow? Totally wrong.

Electric currents in a solid metal wire are flows of

electrons, but in many other materials both the
positive and negative charges can flow. It all depends
on the type of conductor. For example, when you get
an electric shock, no electrons flow through your
body. The electric current inside your tissues is made
of positively charged atoms flowing one way and
negatively charged atoms flowing the other. The
same is true of electrical currents in salt water, in the
ground, and in battery electrolyte. When your car
battery is supplying 300 amps to the starter motor,
300A worth of +H ions (protons) is flowing through
the battery acid, plus a small amount of negative
sulfates flowing the other way. Also, plasmas can
have positive ion currents as well as negative
electron flows: examples are neon signs, fluorescent
 lights, camera flashes, and sparks of all kinds. In
liquid metals the major part of electric current is
electron-flow, but movable positive metal atoms are
also flowing in the other direction. There are even
some conductors where the entire current is a flow
of positive hydrogen ions, +H ions, otherwise known
as protons. One common "proton conductor" is ice.
Other proton-conductors are used as the solid- acid
electrolytes in exotic batteries and, more recently,
are employed as proton-conductive solid electrolyte
membranes in fuel cells.

7. To create "static" charge, we transfer the electrons? Not

always.

"Static" or imbalanced charges can be created by

removing electrons from a neutral atom. They can
also be created by adding or removing charged
atoms from an object, and the removed ions can be
negative or positive ions. It's even possible to add or
remove bare protons from some materials (after all,
protons are the same as H+ positively charged
hydrogen atoms present in any acidic surface layer.)
If you have some positively-charged water, or ice, or
acid, then you probably have too many bare protons
(too many H+ ions.)

I thank Ben Franklin for the discomfort and the controversy he

caused by giving the "wrong" polarity to electrons. Without his
"mistake," students and teachers would be much more comfortable
in their misconceptions, and they might never search for answers.

I try to take my own advice: I always imagine that electric currents

in circuits are not flows of electrons, instead they are flows of
"charges" or "charged particles." Unless we know the type of
conductor involved, we cannot know whether electric currents are
composed of electrons moving in a single direction... or whether
they're electrons AND positive atoms moving oppositely, or
whether it's moving positives and unmoving negative charges. For
example, if you receive an electric shock, no electrons flowed
through your body. Only charged atoms flowed.
 
 MORE  
PAGES
HERE:
THE "ELECTRICITY" WHICH FLOWS IN WIRES IS
SUPPLIED BY BATTERIES OR GENERATORS? Wrong.

Electric currents in copper wires are a flow of electrons, but these

electrons are not supplied by batteries. Generators do not 'generate' any
electrons. Instead the electrons come from the wire. In copper wire,
copper atoms supply the flowing electrons. The electrons in a circuit
were already there before the battery was connected. They were even
there before the copper was mined and made into wires! Batteries and
generators do not create these electrons, they merely pump them, and
the electrons act like a pre-existing fluid which is always found within
all wires. In order to understand electric circuits, we must imagine that
all the wires are pre-filled with a sort of "liquid electricity." Wires are not
like hollow pipes. They're like pre-filled pipes ...with no bubbles allowed.

To clarify this, get rid of the battery. Batteries are too complicated.
Instead, use a hand-cranked generator as your power supply. Ask
yourself exactly where the flowing "electricity" comes from whenever a
generator powers a light bulb. A hand-cranked generator contains a coil
and some magnets. When cranked, it takes electrons in from one
terminal and simultaneously spits them out the other terminal. At the
same time, the generator pushes electrons through the rotating coil of
wire inside itself. It also pushes them through the rest of the circuit. So
where did these electrons come from? Unlike the situation with a
battery-powered circuit, all we have here is wires. Inside the generator
is just more wires. Where is the source of this flowing "electricity?"

When we include the generator in the circuit, we find that the circuit is a
continuous closed loop, and we can find no single place where the
quantities of "electricity" originate. A generator is like a closed-loop
pump, but it does not supply the substance being pumped. That
"substance" was inside the wires all along. Batteries act like this as well.
The liquid between the battery plates is an electrolyte, and electrolytes
are conductors full of movable charges. Some batteries contain acid,
others are alkaline batteries, and still others use conductive salt water.
Flowing charges go through the battery, and no charges build up inside.
(Or better, we should say that the electrolyte's own charges can be forced
to flow.)

But weren't we all taught during grade-school that "batteries and

generators create Current Electricity"? This phrase forms a serious
conceptual stumbling block (at least it did for me!) To fix it, get rid of the
bogus idea called "Current Electricity". Instead change the statement to
read like this:

"Batteries and generators cause electric charge to flow."

To complete the picture, add this: all conductors are always full of
movable charge. That's what a conductor is, it's a material which
contains movable charge.

A battery or generator is like your heart: it moves blood, but it does not
create blood. When a generator stops, or when the metal circuit is
opened, all the electrons stop where they are, and the wires remain
filled with electric charges. But this isn't unexpected, because the wires
were full of vast quantities of charge in the first place.

"ELECTRICITY" IS A PHENOMENON COMPOSED OF

ENERGY? Wrong.

Actually, "Electricity" does not exist. The term "electricity" is a catch-all

word with many meanings. Unfortunately these meanings are
contradictory, and the experts disagree over which one is the standard
definition used in physics. This leads to the unsettling fact that there is
no single substance or energy called "electricity." When we say "quantity
of electricity," we could be talking about quantities of charged particles.
But we could also be talking about quantity of energy, quantity of
current, or potential, forces, fields, net charge, power, or even about
electrical phenomena. All of these are found as separate dictionary
definitions of the word "electricity." But current is not power, particles
are not fields, and charge is not energy. "Quantity of Electricity" is a
meaningless concept because of the contradictory definitions of the
word "electricity."

Much of this problem would vanish if we used the word "electricity"

only to refer to a field of science or class of phenomena. This is the way
we use the words "physics" or "optics," and we never try to measure a
quantity of "optics." Then, if we needed to get down to details, we'd
never discuss "electricity." Instead we'd use words like "charges,"
"energy", "current," etc. We do use the word "electricity" this way
occasionally. But then we immediately turn around and do the
equivalent of teaching our children that optics is a substance, or that
physics is a kind of energy. "Optics" is a substance which comes out of
the light bulb and passes through the lens, right? And when you ride a
bicycle, "physics" comes out of your muscles and makes the wheels turn?
That's basically what we're saying whenever we tell kids that "electricity
flows in wires," or that "light bulbs convert electricity into light."
Below are a few examples of errors caused by the contradictory
meanings.

In AC electric circuits the charges wiggle back and forth, but the
energy moves continuously forward. This is analogous to the way
that sound waves move continuously forward through the air, while
the air itself wiggles back and forth. But if we teach our kids that
"electricity" is made of electrons, and "electricity" is also energy,
then we make a serious error. We unwittingly teach them that the
electricity in wires sits in one spot and wiggles, but at the same time
the electricity moves forward at nearly the speed of light. Garbage!
It's like saying that sound and air are the same thing. And the error
is directly traceable to the bogus "electricity" concept.

Another: when a battery lights up an incandescent bulb, we explain

that the path of electricity is into, then through, then back out of the
bulb, and that no electricity is used up. Then we contradict
ourselves and say that electricity flows one-way from the battery to
bulb, and is totally converted to light. Which meaning is correct?
Does the bulb consume the electricity to make light? Or, does every
bit of the electricity flow through the lightbulb filament and back
out again through the second wire? As far as students are
concerned, we've just told them that it does both things at the same
time!

Another: There are only two forms of electricity, positive electricity

and negative. Correct? NO, the two forms of electricity are static and
current. NO, there are many forms of electricity: triboelectricity,
bioelectricity, myoelectricity, piezoelectricity. NO, electricity is a
single form of energy called Electromagnetism. NO, electricity is
power, it is watts, not energy.

Which is right? All and none, because the word "electricity" has
multiple contradictory definitions. None of the above statements are
right because there is no "electricity" which is charge, energy,
power, and class of phenomena all at once. And all the meanings
are also correct, because the word "electricity" is commonly used to
name all these different things, and these definitions appear in the
dictionary. Who are we to argue with The Dictionary? Yet we should
distrust the dictionary, since it just innocently records words which
people use. Dictionaries aren't scientific references. If people always
use the word "electricity" in misleading and contradictory ways,
then dictionaries will contain contradictory definitions.

ELECTRICITY IS A TYPE OF EVENT? NO.

Scientists originally had a very clear meaning for the word "electricity."
It meant "charge." They would say that electrons carry negative
electricity, and protons carry positive electricity. They would say that an
electric current is a flow of electricity. Unfortunately the meaning of the
word became corrupted in the early 19th century when electric
companies started selling electrical energy. They called this energy by
the name "electricity." But this is a serious problem. When you turn on
the lights in your home, the charges inside the wires wiggle back and
forth and don't flow forwards, while the energy races along the wires at
almost the speed of light. So ...does the "electricity" sit in one spot and
vibrate? Or does "electricity" flow forwards rapidly? Do electric
companies sell electricity, or do they merely pump it back and forth?
Scientists of old would insist that the electricity stays with the electrons,
and therefore the electricity vibrates within the wires without moving
forward. They'd say that utility companies don't sell any electricity. Most
modern K-12 textbooks disagree.

Clearly charge is not energy, so the word "electricity" is being used above
as a single name for two very different things: for electrons and for
electromagnetic energy. Bad move.

Somewhere along the line the grade-school textbooks made the problem
worse by creating a third meaning. They started teaching that
"electricity" was neither the charges nor the energy. Instead, "electricity"
was the motion of the charges inside the wires; it was the current. So
while the scientists were saying that electrons are "particles of
electricity," the K-12 textbooks were contradicting them and saying that
the motion of the electrons was really the electricity. Both can't be right!
And to make matters worse, "Electricity" was already being used to
name all sorts of electrical phenomena. In other words, charges and
currents in nerve cells are "bioelectricity", while charges and currents in
the earth are "geoelectricity," and charges and currents in combed hair
are "triboelectricity." Knocking rocks together creates piezoelectricity,
and our contracting muscles use myoelectricity. Does this mean that
there are many different kinds of electrons? Or many kinds of electrical
energy? Of course not. Bio, geo, tribo-electricity are different subject
headings in science books. They are neither substances nor energies;
they are more like "weather" or "optics." They're different kinds of
electrical occurrences, not different kinds of "electricity."

Today when unwary teachers try to understand "electricity", they

encounter this morass of contradictions. Often they throw up their
hands in frustration and say: "Electricity is really just a kind of event."

This is wrong too!

<Grin>
Pretending that electricity is an event doesn't solve the problem, instead
it makes it worse. Teachers are trying to add yet another definition of
"Electricity" to the growing list!

The truth is that the word "Electricity" has many contradictory meanings
and so the word itself has become meaningless. Electricity is not an
event. Neither is it energy, or electrons, or electron motion. Electricity is
just a big mistake, but a mistake that slowly crept up on everyone. We
never realized it was happening. As long as we keep trying to figure out
what "electricity" really is, we'll keep spreading the confusion. The only
honest move is to stop hiding the problem. Stop the coverup. We should
perform an act of painful honesty, and admit that we've been
accidentally misleading generation after generation of students by
teaching them about the wonderful substance/occurrence/energy called
"electricity" ...which doesn't really exist.

DURING A CURRENT, ELECTRONS IN WIRES START

JUMPING FROM ATOM TO ATOM? Wrong.

When individual atoms of copper are brought together to form a bulk

metal material, something unexpected happens. The outer electron of
each copper atom leaves its parent atom. Rather than orbiting single
atoms, the outer electrons all begin "orbiting" around and among ALL
the atoms in the metal. Essentially the metal's electrons are "jumping"
from atom to atom all the time, even when there is no electric current
applied. Physicists call this the "electron sea" or "electron gas" of the
metal.

Rather than jumping all the time, what would happen if the electrons
only jumped between atoms during electric currents? Well, their
jumping motion gives wires their conductivity. If the electrons jumped
less during smaller currents, and they stopped jumping during zero
current, then the metal conductivity wouldn't be constant, and Ohm's
law wouldn't apply. Instead, conductivity would decrease as current
decreased. (We know that this doesn't happen.) And if the electrons
stopped jumping entirely, the metal would become an insulator. Does
copper become insulating during low or zero current? Of course not. So,
it's wrong to believe that electric current causes electrons to start
hopping. Instead, their constant built-in "hopping" gives conductors a
particular value of conductivity. The constant hopping also makes the
population of electrons behave like a movable fluid. That's what makes
wires so wonderful: they act like pre-filled pipes. They're filled with
"liquid electrons." (And when Ben Franklin thought that electricity was a
fluid, he really wasn't that wrong.)
In solid metals, not all of the electrons become "loose" and begin
wandering. Most are held back by their atoms, and they remain attached
to the individual metal atoms. Only the outer electron(s) become part of
the "electron sea" of the metal. Different types of metal donate different
numbers of electrons to the sea: in some metals, each atom only loses
one electron, while in other metals two or more become free. All metals
are composed of a mixture of opposite charges: a solid grid of positively-
charged atoms which are immersed in a sea of movable electrons. The
"electron sea" of metals gives them their characteristics: most other
materials will shatter, but metals stay bent because the electrons fill in
the gaps. Also, the electron sea is visible to human eyes: it has a silvery
color because movable electrons reflect light very strongly. When there
is an electric current in a wire, it is these movable electrons which flow.
These electrons are not stuck to individual metal atoms in the first place,
so they do not need to "jump" during an electric current.

The orbiting motion of the metal's "liquid" electrons takes place at high
speed. Doesn't this mean that charge moves fast in wire? No, because
this motion has no average direction and is similar to the random
thermal vibrations of a gas. It's like a vibration, and it's happening all the
time, even when the "wind speed" inside the wire is zero. For this reason
we normally ignore the wandering motion of individual electrons, just
as we ignore the fast vibration of water molecules when we talk about
the speed of a river. And air molecules keep bouncing around fast even
when there is no wind at all. The velocity of charges flowing during
electric currents is the average "drift velocity," and when the current
falls to zero and the charges aren't flowing, they're still wiggling
randomly around at very high velocity.

Note that the "Jumping Electrons" misconception in K-12 textbooks is

connected with the "Incorrect Definition of Conductor" misconception.
The books wrongly treat conductors as hollow pipes for "Current." In
truth, conductors are materials which contain movable electricity. If
conductors are like plumbing pipes, then these pipes are already pre-
filled with water.
 

THE "ELECTRICITY" INSIDE OF WIRES MOVES AT THE SPEED OF

LIGHT? Wrong.

In metals, electric current is a flow of electrons. Many books claim that these
electrons flow at the speed of light. This is incorrect. Electrons in an electric
current actually flow quite slowly; at speeds on the order of centimeters per
minute. And in AC circuits the electrons don't really "flow" much at all, instead
they sit in place and vibrate. It's the energy in the circuit which flows fast, not
the electrons.

Metals are always full of movable electrons. In a simple circuit, all of the wires
are totally packed full of electrons all the time. And when a battery or generator
pumps the electrons at one point in the circuit, electrons in the entire loop of the
circuit are forced to flow, and energy spreads almost instantly throughout the
entire circuit. This happens even though the electrons move very slowly.

Electric circuits as drive-belts

To aid your understanding, imagine a large wheel. If you give it a spin, the entire
wheel moves as a unit, and this is how you transmit mechanical energy almost
instantly to all parts of the wheel's rim. The motion starts at the spot where your
hand touches the wheel, and it spreads rapidly from there. But notice that the
wheel itself didn't move very fast. The material of the wheel is like the electrons
in a wire. Electrical energy is like the "jerk," the mechanical energy-wave which
you sent to all parts of the wheel when you gave it a spin. Mechanical energy
moves incredibly quickly to all parts of the wheel, but the wheel's atoms didn't
have to travel rapidly in order for this to happen.

MORE about electron speed.

Electric circuits as air-filled tubes

Here's another way to understand the problem. Think of sound waves. When we
talk, do our vocal cords spew out air molecules? No. Do these molecules zoom
out of our mouths at 720 MPH, fly across the empty room, then crash into
waiting eardrums? NO! Air molecules are not sound waves. Air molecules do not
travel along with sound waves. It's the sound waves that move quickly, not the
air molecules. In reality the air barely moves at all, instead the air vibrates back
and forth while the sound waves race through the air. The air is the "medium,"
and sound is a wave which travels through that medium. The same is true of AC
electric circuits: the wires are already full of electrons just as the room is already
full of air. The electrons in the wire are the "medium" for waves. And when the
electrical energy flies along the wires at the speed of light, the electrons do not
follow it. Instead the electrons sit in one place and vibrate.

Many people have questioned whether it's really so wrong to teach our kids that
electrons move at the speed of light. Well, ask yourself whether it's wrong to
teach that sound and wind are the same thing. Is it alright to teach kids that
sound is just air molecules which fly through empty space at 720 mph?
Obviously it's terribly wrong. The world isn't in a vacuum, and our mouths
aren't launching streams of 700MPH molecules. People will have almost no
understanding of sound at all if they think that sound is made of fast-moving
molecules rather than waves in a medium. To grasp sound, we need to know
that sound is a kind of wave. If we don't, then we have a learning barrier, and
our understanding of sound stops dead. And kids will have almost no
understanding of electricity at all if they think that electrons fly through empty
hollow wires at the speed of light. We need to know that electrical energy is a
kind of wave. If we don't know this, then we have a very serious learning
barrier. Take extra time to get rid of this barrier. Only then can learning
continue.

Other articles

In a simple circuit, WHERE does the energy flow?

"Electricity" is not a form of energy
Arguing about energy flow
What is electricity REALLY? (Charge-flow vs. energy-flow)

THE ELECTRIC ENERGY IN A CIRCUIT FLOWS IN A CIRCLE?

Wrong.

When you connect a light bulb to a battery, Electrical Energy moves from the
battery to the bulb. This is a one-way flow. The battery loses energy and the bulb
gains it. Then the energy received by the bulb is turned into light.

If this phenomenon is examined in great detail, we find that electrical energy is

composed of waves traveling along columns of electrons inside the wires, and
the energy itself is contained in electromagnetic fields connected to those
electrons. We find that it travels as wave energy, that it exists only outside of the
wires, and most importantly, that it travels one way along both wires on its trip
from the battery to the bulb. The electrical energy did not travel in a circle. So,
when you plug a lamp into a wall socket, you shouldn't imagine that the AC
energy is a mysterious invisible entity traveling back and forth inside the wires.
Instead you should think of AC energy as a mysterious invisible flow that comes
out of the outlet, runs along the outside of both wires of the lampcord, then it
dives into the filament of the light bulb. Your electric company is sending out
long narrow "sausages" made of electrical energy. The wires are guiding them,
and your appliances are absorbing them.

THE TWO KINDS OF ELECTRICITY ARE "STATIC" AND

"CURRENT?" Nope.

Static and Current are two ways in which electrical charges can behave. If we
said that Electrical Science is divided into two fields of research called
Electrostatics and Electrodynamics, we'd be correct.
But aren't there several different kinds of electricity? No. We've known this since
Michael Faraday first presented a study in 1833 ( published in 1839) where he
concluded that all the different "forms" of electricity had an identical cause. For
the title of this publication he chose... "Identity of Electricities." See vol.1, p360 in
his book "Experimental Researches in Electricity".

Faraday examined the following five situations:

1. Voltaic piles (Current Electricity)

2. Electrostatic generators and frictional charge (Static Electricity)
3. Coils and magnetic induction (Current Electricity)
4. Thermoelectricity (Seebeck effect)
5. Bioelectricity ("torpedo" ray and Electric Eel)

Faraday concluded that all these were simply situations where the charge and
the current had different values. We believe the same today: for example, so
called "static electricity" involves high voltage at little or no current. Are
batteries a source of "current electricity?" Well, stack up enough batteries in
series, and the ones on the end will attract lint, produce corona discharges, and
cause hair to rise. And hook up enough VandeGraaff machines in parallel, and
you can light up a standard fluorescent tube.

But suppose you don't trust authorities like Faraday? Well, instead let's examine
the situation itself. First, please realize that the study of water is divided into
Hydrostatics and Hydrodynamics, yet we don't go around constantly discussing
a special kind of water called "static water," nor do we think that "current
water" is a kind of invisible energy. Water can move, and water can be
pressurized, but it's still just one kind of water. The same applies to electric
charges.

For those among us who insist that "Static electricity" and "Current electricity"
are two separate kinds of electricity, then please explain the following.
Whenever positive and negative charges are forced to separate as they flow
along a pair of wires, then those wires becomes electrostatically charged... but
the charges are not static. Instead they're flowing along. Yet even while the
charges flow, those wires will cause hair to rise, and they can attract bits of fur
or lint... all while the so-called "static electricity" is moving along as an electric
current. How can "static electricity" be dynamic? Does this make your brain
ache?

The solution is simple: just realize that "static electricity" is a misnomer. "Static"
is actually composed of forcibly *separated* opposite charges, and if those
separated charges should flow along, they still behave as "static electricity,"
regardless of their motion. The key is the separation of the charges...while their
"static-ness" is not important. For this reason, charges can behave as "static
electricity" and "current electricity" both at the same time. This is not so terrible,
since water behaves in a similar way: water can be pressurized, and it can flow
at the same time. A flow of high-pressure water simultaneously falls under the
two subjects of "hydrostatics" and "hydrodynamics." Fortunately we don't
confuse students by calling high-pressure water by the name "static water."
Maybe we should change the name of "Static electricity" to something sensible,
like "charge imbalance", or "pressurized electricity." It would end a lot of
confusion.

So to sum up... charges can flow, and opposite charges can be forced to separate
and become un-cancelled, but this doesn't mean that "flowing electricity" is a
different kind of charge than "separated electricity." Separation and flow are two
electrical behaviors, they are not two "kinds of electricity."

More about this: WHAT IS ELECTRICITY?

CURRENT ELECTRICITY IS THE OPPOSITE OF STATIC

ELECTRICITY? Wrong.

It was Michael Faraday who discovered in 1839 that "static electricity" and
"current electricity" don't actually exist.

Faraday showed that electric eels can charge a capacitor or deflect an ammeter.
So-called "animal electricity" was not a separate type.

He also showed that rug-scuffing or "frictional" electricity was simply a low

current being produced at a high voltage (small I at high Q,) and like the Electric
Eel, it could be used to deflect ammeters or even perform
electrolysis/electroplating. He did the same thing with volta-piles (batteries,)
electrostatic generators, thermocouples, and piezo devices. He concluded that
there was only one "kind" of electricity, although different sources would
produce different values of Q and I, of charge and current. See M. Faraday, 1839
"Experimental Researches in Electricity," Vol 1, p360

But it's 170 years later, and while grade school textbooks aren't pretending that
"Bioelectricity" is a separate type, they're still insisting that "static" and "current"
are the two opposite "forms of electricity." No, wrong. It's true that scuffing on a
rug will produce thousands of volts at currents of tens of microamperes. Waving
a magnet near a copper plate can induce currents of thousands of amperes at
voltages of tens of microvolts. As Faraday found, these aren't two opposite
"forms of electricity."

Some more detail... so-called "Static" electricity appears whenever the negative
charges within matter are separated and held apart from the positive charges.
On the other hand, electric currents appear whenever the negative charges
within matter are made to flow through the positive charges (or when positives
flows through the negatives.) "Static" and "Current" are two entirely
independent events. They are not opposites, and they can both appear at the
same time.

"Static" is actually a separation; it is a stretching-apart, and it really has

little to do with anything remaining static or stationary.

"Current" is a flowing motion. It has little to do with the separation of

opposite charges.

"Static electricity" was misnamed. It's not a separate kind of electricity, so really
it should be called "charge separation" or maybe "high-tension electricity." It's
"stretched" or "pressurized" electricity. Since tension is not the opposite of
motion, Static is not the opposite of Current. And although electric current really
exists and electric charge really exists, there is no such energy or material called
"current electricity" or "static electricity." See MORE on this topic.

THE STUFF THAT FLOWS THROUGH WIRES IS CALLED

'ELECTRIC CURRENT'? Horribly misleading!

Most K-12 textbooks discuss a substance or energy called "current". They

constantly talk about "flows of current." However, here's a pointed question:
what flows in rivers? Is it water, or is it "current?" If I fill a bucket from the
faucet, is my bucket full of "current?" No! Water moves, water flows in pipes, not
"current." A flow of water is a correct phrase, while "a flow of current" is not.
The same idea applies to electricity: electric current is a flow of a substance, but
the name of the substance is not "current."

Since a current is a flow of charge, the common expression "flow of

current" should be avoided, since literally it means "flow of flow of
charge."

              - Modern College Physics: Sears, Wehr, & Zemanski

Another question: what would be the consequences if the English language had
no word for "water", but instead we called it "current"? What if everyone
actually believed that rivers and plumbing pipes were full of "current?" What if
we believed that "current" flows in rivers... yet we had no name for water? Yes it
would be bizarre, but here's the thing: wouldn't people tend to acquire many
serious misconceptions about the nature of water? For example, we might
imagine that water vanishes whenever it stops flowing. After all, "current" goes
away when the river is halted. And when we turn off a faucet, we'd imagine that
the pipes became empty. After all, a halted current is... nothing! A glass of water
would seem very confusing, since the glass would be full of some weird kind of
"stationary current." Students would ask all kinds of questions about the
confusing nature of "current," and their teachers wouldn't know how to answer.
As far as elementary textbooks are concerned, we have no name for the thing
which flows inside of wires. Yes it's true that this entity, whenever it is flowing, is
properly called "an electrical current." But when the stuff *stops* flowing, what
do we call it? It's still inside the wire of course. But it's not moving anymore.
Refer to advanced physics texts, and there we'll find its correct name: Charge. An
electric current is a flow of charge. Yet the K-6 books never mention this. Instead
they say that "current flows." They say it over and over. And over! And any
students are very lucky if they avoid picking up the wrong idea that the charges
vanish when the flow is halted. (Does the water in a pipe suddenly evaporate
when you halt its flow? No, and neither do the flowing charges within a metal
wire. The "current" is gone, but the charges just stopped in place.)

Worse, most books say that "current electricity" flows inside wires. They don't
mention charge-flow. To this I ask, "Is there a special kind of water called
'Current Water?'" The answer obviously is NO. This same answer applies to
electricity: there is no special "electricity" called Current Electricity. Electricity
can flow and electricity can stop, and a flow of electricity (or charge) is called an
Electric Current, but there is no such thing as Current Electricity.

Here's a useful hint for authors: to verify accuracy in your articles, temporarily
remove the word "current" and replace it everywhere with the term "charge
flow." Then check to see if your sentences still make sense. If a sentence states
that charge-flow is a form of energy, then you've found a mistake. If it states that
charge-flow flows, or talks about flows of charge-flow then that particular
sentence is probably confusing to students, and is teaching them to believe in an
impossible and contradictory substance called "current electricity."

ELECTRIC CURRENT IS A FLOW OF ENERGY? Wrong.

Electric current is not a flow of energy; it's a flow of charge. Charge and energy
are two very different things. To separate them in your mind, see this list of
differences.

An electric current is a flowing motion of charged particles, and the particles do

not carry energy along with them as they move. A current is defined as a flow of
charge by I=Q/T; amperes are coulombs of charge flowing per unit time. The
term "Electric Current" means the same thing as "charge flow." Electric current
is a very slow flow of charges, while energy flows fast. Also, during AC
alternating current the charges move slightly back and forth while the energy
moves rapidly forward.

Electric energy is quite different than charge. The energy traveling across an
electric current is made up of waves in electromagnetic fields and it moves VERY
rapidly. Electric energy moves at a completely different speed than electric
current, and obviously they are two different things flowing in wires at the same
time. Unless we realize that two different things are flowing, we won't
understand how circuits work. Indeed, if we believe in a single flowing
"electricity," we will have little grasp of basic electrical science.

In an electric circuit, the path of the electric charges is circular, while the path of
the energy is not. A battery can send electric energy to a light bulb, and the bulb
changes electrical energy into light. The energy does not flow back to the battery
again. At the same time, the electric current is different; it is a very slow circular
flow, and the electric charges flow through the light bulb filament and all of
them flow back out again. They return to the battery.

Electric energy can even flow in a direction opposite to that of the electric
current. In a single wire, electric energy can move continuously forward while
the direction of the electric current is slowly backwards. In AC circuits the
energy flows continuously forward while the charges are alternating back and
forth at high frequency. The charges wiggle, while the energy flows forward;
electric current is not energy flow.

Here's one way to clarify the muddled concepts: if electric current is like wind,
then electrical energy is like some sound waves, and the electrons are like the
molecules of the air. For example, sound can travel through a pipe if the pipe is
full of air molecules, and electrical energy can flow along a wire because the
wire is full of movable charges. Sound moves much faster than wind, correct?
And electrical energy moves much faster than electric current for much the
same reason. Air in a pipe can flow fast or slow, while sound waves always move
at the same very high speed. Charges in a wire can flow fast or slow, while
electrical energy always flows along the wire at a single incredibly high speed.
Whenever sound is flowing through a pipe, the air molecules in that pipe are
vibrating back and forth. And when waves of AC electrical energy are flowing
along a wire, the electrons in that wire are vibrating back and forth 60 times per
second.

Suppose that we were all taught that sound and wind are the same thing? This
would prevent us from understanding both wind and sound. We'd be forever
wondering why air molecules DON'T travel along at 720MPH, while sound does
travel this fast. Where electricity is concerned, K-6 textbooks teach us that
"sound" and "wind" are the same. They wrongly teach that electric currents are
a flow of energy, as if wind were really sound. It completely prevents us from
understanding both electric current and energy flow.

Be careful, since my description of the above pipes are just an analogy, and
sound waves aren't *exactly* like electrical energy. For example, sound can flow
inside an air-filled tube, while electrical energy always flows in the space
outside of the wires, and does not travel along within the metal wires. However,
electrical energy is coupled with compression waves in the electrons of the wire.
Electron-waves travel inside the wires, yet the energy they carry is in the
invisible fields surrounding the wires.
Is it actually important for people to understand that wind is not sound?
Obviously yes! School books would cause harm if they taught everyone that
wind is sound. And if we want to understand circuits, we need a clear view of
electric charge-flow, and of electric energy flow. Students need to be totally
certain that they are two different things, and our school textbooks teach us the
exact opposite.
 

ELECTRICITY LEAVES ONE BATTERY PLATE, THEN RETURNS TO

THE OTHER? Not quite.

In a simple circuit, the actual path of electric current is through the battery.
Some books imply (or even state outright) that whenever a battery is connected
in a complete circuit, the charges only flow in the wires. They say that one
battery plate is the source of electrons, the other plate collects "used" electrons,
and no charges flow in the chemicals between the battery plates. This is wrong.
These books often contain a diagram of a battery, wires, and a light bulb. The
diagram shows the current in the wires, but charges aren't shown going through
the battery. This is wrong. The electrolyte is a conductor. There is a large current
flowing between the battery plates.

In any simple electric circuit, the path of the electric current is a complete circle.
It's like a drive belt, and it has no starting point. It goes through all parts of the
circuit including the battery, and including the battery's liquid electrolyte.
Between the plates of any battery we find a highly conductive liquid. Sometimes
its an acid (as with car batteries.) Sometimes it's alkaline, and sometimes it's salt
water. (But how can a battery even work, if the plates are connected together
with conductive fluid? That's a separate topic.)

No charges are continuously building up in the battery plates. There's only a

small build-up to "pressurize" the terminals and create the flow. And if there's
one Ampere in the wires connected to the battery, then there's also a 1-Amp flow
of charge in the electrolyte between the two plates. Where does this charge come
from? Go down to this section. A battery does not supply charges, it merely
pumps them. Whenever electric charge flows into one terminal of a battery, an
equal amount of charge must flow through the battery and back out through the
other terminal. In a simple DC battery/bulb circuit, the charges are forever
flowing around and around the circuit, going through the bulb filament, but also
going through the battery. The battery is a charge pump.

ELECTRIC ENERGY IS CARRIED BY INDIVIDUAL ELECTRONS?

Wrong.

Some books teach that, in a simple battery/bulb circuit, each electron carries
energy to the bulb, deposits its energy in the hot filament, and then returns to
the battery where it's re-filled with energy. This is wrong. Some books give an
analogy with a circular track full of freight cars waiting to be filled with coal.
This picture is wrong too. The energy in electric circuits is not carried by
individual electrons. Instead the electrons flow very slowly while the electrical
energy flows rapidly along the columns of electrons. In AC circuits the electrons
don't flow forward at all, instead they vibrate slightly, even though the energy
flows rapidly from generator to appliance. As with rotating shafts and drive
belts, the energy is carried by the circuit as a whole, not by the individual
particles in the system.

Here's an analogy which may help explain it:

Imagine a wheel that's free to spin. For example, turn a bicycle upside-
down in your mind. Give the front tire a spin. When you spin the
wheel, your hand injects energy into the entire wheel all at once. Now
put your hand lightly against some part of the tire so the spinning
wheel is slowed and stopped by friction. Your hand gets hot. Your hand
extracts energy from the entire wheel, all at once, and the whole wheel
slows down. Finally perform both tasks at once: rub one hand lightly
against the tire, while you use your other hand to keep the wheel
spinning.

Would it be right to tell students that the "Power" hand fills each rubber
molecule with energy, that the molecules travel to the "Friction" hand and dump
their energy? Then the empty molecules return to the "power" hand and get
refilled? No, of course not! If this were true then the energy would be forced to
travel only as fast as the rubber. Your "friction" hand wouldn't experience any
friction until those magically energized rubber molecules made their way
around the rim. Part of the wheel would be spinning while part would be de-
energized and unmoving, and this would be really a strange sight to see!

Instead, one hand spins the wheel and fills the whole thing with kinetic energy...
and the rubbing hand sucks the energy back out at the same time. The wheel
rotates, and energy flows almost instantly across the wheel, going from the
"spin" hand to the "friction" hand.

A flashlight circuit is like our bicycle wheel. The electrons in the copper wire
circuit are like the rim of the wheel. Electrons are like an invisible drive-belt
hidden inside the wires. The battery causes all the electrons in the loop of wire
to begin moving. In this way it injects energy into the whole circuit all at once,
just like a hand that spins a bicycle wheel. As soon as the battery moves the
circuit's electrons, the distant lightbulb lights up. The electrons moving into the
bulb's filament are exactly the same as the ones moving out; the bulb doesn't
change them or extract stored energy from them. (Did your hand do anything to
change the rubber molecules as it rubbed on the bicycle wheel? No, it just
slowed down the entire wheel.) A hand can extract energy from an entire
bicycle wheel instantly, and the hand heats up by friction. Same thing with the
bulb, it slows down ALL the electrons throughout the entire circuit, and in this
way the bulb extracts energy from the whole circuit as it lights up.

In other words, electric circuits are drive belts, and all wires are always full of
movable electrons.

In discussing the "freight cars" misconception with teachers, I find that they see
nothing wrong with teaching the wrong picture to their students! After all, the
kids instantly grasp the "freight cars with coal" story since it's very visible and it
offers a sensible explanation. What more can we ask? Yet there is a serious
problem here: electrons flow slowly, and in AC circuits they don't flow at all,
instead they wiggle. If the freight cars only vibrate, and never flow forwards,
how the heck does any coal get to the other side of the circle? (How does AC
actually work?) There's no answer. Students will be trapped.

In order to really understand electric circuits in the more advanced classes, a

student must unlearn the seductive freight-cars analogy. "Unlearning" rarely
happens, and so this wrong analogy can form a learning barrier which can
forever prevent any further progress. It freezes their understanding of
electricity at the elementary-school level. Yes, if those particular kids will never
have any need to understand how electricity really works, then the freight-cars
analogy is fine. The kids can memorize it, teachers can test them for it, and
everybody is happy. "Learning" has occurred (rather than actual learning.) But if
the kids grow up to become scientists and engineers and technical people, then
the freight-cars analogy causes them harm. Unfortunately, it only causes future
harm, so the grade-school educators never encounter the negative effects of the
misconceptions they've installed in their kids' minds.

OK, what if you were using the "freight cars w/coal" analogy, but you also had to
explain how "AC" works? In that case the freight cars are moving back and forth
but not progressing forwards. How can they deliver their coal to the far end of
the track? I suspect that teachers encounter this problem, but rather than
recognizing that "freight cars" is a misconception, they instead pile another
misconception: the wrong idea that electrons in wires flow at the speed of light.
After all, if the coal-filled freight cars traveled instantly to the far end of the
track, then dumped their coal, then traveled instantly back, that would be
alternating current. Right?!! Wrong, because electric currents are actually very
slow flows of charges. During AC those "freight cars" only wiggle back and forth
a few inches on their tracks.

The bicycle-wheel analogy has no problem explaining AC. Just wiggle the bicycle
wheel back and forth instead of spinning it continuously. The wiggling wheel
will rub upon the distant unmoving "friction" hand, and will heat up that hand.
Energy can essentially travel instantly across the bicycle wheel, even though the
wheel itself rotates slowly. Energy can travel instantly between the two hands,
even if the wheel moves back and forth instead of spinning. What determines
the direction of this energy travel? It's simple. If one hand spins the wheel, it
throws energy out into the wheel, and if another hand rubs on the tire, it
extracts energy from the wheel. Notice that the energy doesn't care about the
wheel's rotation. The energy flows one-way, from one hand to the other, even if
the wheel reverses direction, and even if the wheel vibrates back and forth
rather than continuously turning. And most important: both paths through the
tire are sending energy in one direction: towards the frictional load. In one side,
the energy is going backwards against the direction of current.

The "filled freightcars" analogy only becomes seductively appropriate when

used to explain Direct Current. However, when explaining Alternating Current,
the analogy breaks down completely. Each freight car wiggles back and forth, so
how can those energy-filled buckets move from the "battery" to the "light bulb?"
They cannot. The analogy doesn't work, and students who have learned the
analogy will find it impossible to understand AC. In grade-school they were
taught about batteries and bulbs, but never about power plants and AC electric
heaters. Again, this is fine if the kids have no hopes of entering any kind of
technical career; if their science learning will cease after fifth grade...

How about another analogy about this analogy (grin!) Sound waves are much
like electrical energy in circuits. So, how do sound waves work? Ask yourself
this: would it be OK to teach kids that your vocal chords place energy into air
molecules, then each air molecule zooms out of your mouth at 720MPH, then flies
across the room almost instantly, then eventually crashes into the ears of distant
listeners? That's silly. There's no supersonic wind coming out of our mouths. I
would think that any author who use this kind of explanation should be
ashamed. Yes, the explanation "works", and it is easy for the kids to grasp. But it
is totally wrong: sound is carried by waves in the air, not by individual air
molecules launched at immense velocities out of your mouth. And any kid who
believes this "launched molecules" sound-explanation will eventually have
terrible difficulties should they ever have need to understand how sound really
works.

All of this is an analogy for wires and circuits: electrical energy is wave energy;
electrical energy moves along the columns of electrons like sound waves move
through the air, and when electrical energy flows across a circuit, the electrons
DON'T flow along with it. Electrons are a wave-medium, and all electrical energy
is wave-energy. (Don't forget that electrical energy has another name:
electromagnetism.) Yank on a rope, and the rope moves towards you, but the
"jerk" flies rapidly in the other direction along the rope. The "jerk" is the energy.
It travels as a wave through a medium. But this means ...electric circuits have a
rope inside! Exactly right. That's why you need a complete circuit, since if there
is a blockage anywhere in the, ahem, "circuit," the ring of invisible electricity-
rope cannot move.
BATTERIES STORE CHARGE, AND THIS CHARGE FLOWS IN
WIRES? No.

The word "charge" has more than one meaning, and the meanings contradict
each other. The "charge" in a battery is energy (chemical energy), while the
"charge" that flows inside wires is part of matter, it is electron particles. And
those wires, even though full of charge... are neutral and uncharged! The term
"charge" refers to several different things: to net-charge, to quantities of charged
particles, and to "charges" of energy. If you are not very careful while using the
word "charge" in teaching, you might be spreading misconceptions.

For example, even when metals are totally neutral, they contain vast quantities
of movable electrons, immense charge. So, should we say that they contain zero
charge because they are neutral? Or, should we say that they contain a very
large amount of electric charge, because they are filled with many Coulombs of
electrons? Don't answer yet, because your answer might be inconsistent with
how we describe capacitors (further below.)

Another: if I place an electron and a proton together, do I have twice as much

charge as before, or do I have a neutral hydrogen atom with no charge at all?
What I do have is confusion. Misuse of "charge" makes descriptions of electric
circuits seem complex and abstract, when the explanations are really just
wrong.

Another: electric currents in wires are actually a motion of "neutralized" charge,

where every electron has a proton nearby. If we teach our kids that a wire is
uncharged, and we also teach that electric current is a flow of charge, how can
anyone make sense of a situation where a wire has no charge at all, yet contains
an enormous flow of charge? We could say "Oh, but most electric currents are
usually a flow of Uncharged Charge." WHAT? What would a student make of that
statement? Can you see the problems that arise because of the word "charge?"

Another one: as you "charge" a battery, you cause an electric current to appear
in the electrolyte, and this motion of electric charges causes chemical reactions
to occur upon the surfaces of the battery's plates. Chemical "fuel" accumulates,
but charge does not: the charges flow into (or out of) the surfaces of the plates
and do not accumulate there. (The path for electric current is through the
battery. Through, and back out again.) A "charge" of chemical energy is stored in
the battery, but electrical charge is not. And when a battery is being
"discharged", it's chemical fuel drives a process which pumps charge through
the battery. During discharge the battery's fuel will eventually be exhausted, but
the total electric charge within the battery will never decrease!

Here's a way to imagine the process: a battery is like a spring-driven "wind up"
water pump. Send water backwards through this pump, and you wind up the
internal spring. Then, provide a pathway between the inlet and the outlet of the
pump, and the spring-motor will pump the water in a circle. But now think for a
moment: the water is the charge, yet our wind-up pump does not store water!
When we "charge" our wind-up pump, we send the charge (water) through the
pump, and this stores energy by winding up the spring. Same with a battery: to
"charge" a battery, we send electrical charges through the battery and back out
again. This causes the chemicals on the battery plates to store energy, just like
winding up the spring in our spring-powered water pump. See how "charging"
and "charges" can create a horrible mess of misunderstandings? When this mess
gets into the K-12 textbooks, and educators start teaching it to kids, the kids end
up believing that Electricity is far too complicated for them to understand. Yet
the fault does not lie with the students!!!!

Another one: if you "charge" a capacitor, you move charges from one plate to the
other, and the number of charges within the device as a whole does not change.
Or from an engineer's perspective, you drive charge through the capacitor,
which causes potential across the plates to rise, and the rate of rise is
proportional to the charge-flow. But capacitors have exactly the same total
charge within them whether they are "charged" or not! Whenever we take an
electron from one plate, we put an electron onto the other plate. Whenever we
speak of "charging" capacitors, we've suddenly stopped talking about charge,
and started talking about electrical energy. A "charged" capacitor has quite a bit
more energy than an "uncharged" capacitor (but exactly the same net-charge,
and the same quantity of + and - particles inside.) This basic concept reinforces
the idea of charge-conservation, and is very important in understanding simple
circuitry, yet it is rarely taught. The misleading term "charge" stands in the way
of understanding. I suspect that students are not the only ones being misled.
Many teachers misunderstand simple physics, and they truely believe that the
purpose of a capacitor is to store electric charge.

Think like this: both capacitors and inductors (coils) store energy. They store
energy in the form of fields. Coils don't store any electric charge. Capacitors don't
store any electric charge. Yet electric charge is the medium of energy-storage in
both coils and capacitors. In capacitors, energy is stored in the form of
"stretched charge", or electric potential energy, where positive and negative
charged particles are pulled away from each other and held separated. Coils
store energy in the form of relative moving charge which contains a sort of
electrical kinetic energy. However, we don't put any charge into a capacitor
when we "charge" it, any more than we put charge into a superconductive ring-
inductor when we give the ring a "charge" of electromagnetic energy.

"STATIC ELECTRICITY" (CONTACT ELECTRIFICATION) IS CAUSED

BY FRICTION? Wrong.

"Static electricity" is not caused by friction. It appears when two dissimilar

insulating materials are placed into intimate contact and then separated. All
that's required is the touching. For example, when adhesive tape is placed on an
insulating surface and then peeled off, both the tape and the surface will become
electrified. No rubbing was required. Or when a plastic wheel rolls across a
rubber surface, both the surface and the wheel become electrified. Intimate
contact is sufficient, and no rubbing is needed. In a VandeGraaff generator the
rubber belt pushes against the plastic roller, then peels away again. Of course if
one of the two materials is rough or fibrous, then it does not give a very large
footprint of contact area. In this case the process of rubbing one material upon
another can greatly increase the total contact area. And the heating of the fibers
can make the materials even more electrically "dissimilar", which aids the
charge-separation process. But this rubbing is not the cause of the electrification.

"STATIC ELECTRICITY" IS A BUILDUP OF ELECTRONS? Wrong.

It is not a buildup of anything, it is an imbalance between quantities of positive

and negative particles already present.

During contact-electrification it is usually only the negative electrons which are

moved. As negative particles are pulled away from the positive particles, equal
and opposite areas of imbalance are created. In one place you'll have more
protons than electrons, and this spot will have an overall positive charge.
Elsewhere you'll have more electrons than protons, for an overall negative
charge. You've not caused a "buildup", you've caused an imbalance, an un-
canceling, a separation. In fact, the scientific term for static electrification is
charge separation. The law of Conservation of Electric Charge requires that
every time you create a region of negative charge, you must also create a region
of positive charge. In other words you must create a separation of opposite
charges. If you want to call it a "buildup of electrons", then you also need to call
it a "buildup of protons," since you can't have one without the other.

"STATIC ELECTRICITY" IS ELECTRICITY WHICH IS STATIC?

Wrong.

"Static electricity" exists whenever there are unequal amounts of positive and
negative charged particles present. It doesn't matter whether the region of
imbalance is flowing or whether it is still. Only the imbalance is important, not
the "staticness." To say otherwise can cause several sorts of confusion.

All solid objects contain vast quantities of positive and negative particles
whether the objects are electrified or not. When these quantities are not exactly
equal and there is a tiny bit more positive than negative (or vice versa), we say
that the object is "electrified" or "charged," and that "static electricity" exists.
When the quantities are equal, we say the object is "neutral" or "uncharged."
"Charged" and "uncharged" depends on the sum of opposite quantities. Since
"static electricity" is actually an imbalance in the quantities of positive and
negative, it is wrong to believe that the phenomenon has anything to do with
lack of motion, with being "static." In fact, "static electricity" can easily be made
to *move* along conductive surfaces. When this happens, it continues to display
all it's expected characteristics as it flows, so it does not stop being "static
electricity" while it moves along very non-statically! In a high voltage electric
circuit, the wires can attract lint, raise hair, etc., even though there is a large
current in the wires and all the charges are flowing (and none of the electricity
is "static.") And last, when any electric circuit is broken and the charges stop
flowing, they do *not* turn into "static electricity" and begin attracting lint, etc. A
disconnected wire contains charges which are not moving (they are static,) yet it
contains no "static electricity!"

To sort out this craziness, simply remember that "static electricity" is not a
quantity of unmoving charged particles, and "static electricity" has nothing to do
with unmoving-ness. If you believe that "static" and "current" are opposite types
of "electricity," you will forever be hopelessly confused about electricity in
general.

ELECTRIC POWER FLOWS FROM GENERATOR TO CONSUMER?

Wrong.

Electric power cannot be made to flow. Power is defined as "flow of energy."

Saying that power "flows" is silly. It's as silly as saying that the stuff in a moving
river is named "current" rather than named "water." Water is real, water can
flow, flows of water are called currents, but we should never make the mistake
of believing that water's motion is a type of substance. Talking of "current"
which "flows" confuses everyone. The issue with energy is similar. Electrical
energy is real, it is sort of like a stuff, and it can flow along. When electric energy
flows, the flow is called "electric power." But electric power has no existence of
its own. Electric power is the flow rate of another thing; electric power is an
energy current. Energy flows, but power never does, just as water flows but
"water current" never does.

The above issue affects the concepts behind the units of electrical measurement.
Energy can be measured in Joules or Ergs. The rate of flow of energy is called
Joules per second. For convenience, we give the name "power" to this Joule/sec
rate of flow, and we measure it in terms of Watts. This makes for convenient
calculations. Yet Watts have no physical, substance-like existence. The Joule is
the fundamental unit, and the Watt is a unit of convenience which means "joule
per second."

I believe that it is a good idea to teach only the term "Joule" in early grades, to
entirely avoid the "watt" concept. Call power by the proper name "joules per
second". Only introduce "watts" years later, when the students feel a need for a
convenient way to state the "joules per second" concept. Unfortunately many
grade-school textbooks do the reverse, they keep the seemingly-complex "Joule"
away from the kids, while spreading the "watt" concept far and wide! Later they
try to explain that joules are simply watt-seconds! (That's watts times seconds,
not watts per second.)

If you aren't quite sure that you understand watt-seconds, stop thinking
backwards and think like this: Joules are real, a flow of Joules is measured in
Joules per second, and "Watts" should not interfere with these basic ideas.

PROTONS CANNOT FLOW? Not so.

In metals, yes you're right, the protons of the metal atoms cannot flow along. But
never forget that metals aren't the only type of conductor. So, where would we
encounter some flowing protons?

First, note that proton currents are typically called something different. From a
chemistry viewpoint, a single proton is really nothing but a hydrogen atom
which is lacking any electrons. So, the other common name for proton is H+, or
"positive Hydrogen ion!" Where do we find electric currents made of + hydrogen
ions? Car batteries, of course. When H2SO4 is added to water, it splits up
(ionizes) to become the negative SO4 ion plus two H+, two mobile protons.

In acids the electric current is a flow of protons in one direction and negative
ions in the other. The protons are much more easily moved, so most of the
electric current in acid solutions is from the proton flow.

And besides acids, pure water also is a conductor where the currents are +H ions
(protons) and -OH negative ions, each travelling in opposite directions. (Instead
of metal wires full of electrons, imagine a long hose full of water. Push one
proton into one end, and immediately a proton pops out of the far end! That's
proton flow.) Interesting fact: ice that's made from fresh water is not a perfect
insulator, instead the OH- ions are immobilized in the ice crystal: it's a proton
conductor.

Recently with the rise of green-energy topics we have another common proton
conductor. These are called ...proton conductors. They're used in fuel cells.
Another name for them is "solid electrolyte." In these types of conductors the
charge carriers are protons.

PS Why do chemistry texts call protons by the name "hydrogen ion?" Part of this
is just tradition: we knew about hydrogen, and then about atom ionization, long,
long before we knew about protons. (Heh, so why don't chemists call Helium by
the name "alpha particle?") But also, protons are extremely reactive chemically,
and it makes sense to view them as positive charged hydrogen, the first element
in the Periodic Table. Also, hydrogen isn't pure protons, it's not a pure isotope.
When hydrogen is present, a tiny fraction of a percent is actually deuterium, a
proton plus a neutron, and far smaller fraction has two neutrons: tritium. Your
water is mostly made of protons and oxygen, but a bit of it is heavy water, and a
slight amount is radioactive. To conceal this complexity, we could pretend that
it's all protons. Or we could avoid the issue and just call it Hydrogen.

And finally, please notice that all of this goes directly against the common
widespread misconception that "all electricity is really electrons."

LIGHT AND RADIO WAVES TRAVEL AT 186,000 MILES PER

SECOND? No.

They only travel at 186,000 miles per second while in a perfect vacuum. Light
waves travel a bit slower in the air, and they travel lots slower when inside
glass. And radio waves move much slower than 186,000 miles/sec when they
travel within plastic-insulated coaxial cable. The term "speed of light" is
misleading, because the complete term actually reads "speed of light in a
vacuum." There actually is no set "speed of light" because light waves and radio
waves (and electrical energy) can travel at many different speeds depending on
the medium through which the waves propagate.
[NOTE: I receive complaints insisting that the speed of light is always the same,
and that glass slows the light waves by atomic absorption and emission. Yet this
is a very distorted viewpoint, since it denies the existence of extremely useful
mental models called "transparent medium" and "EM wave." Also it wrongly
teaches us that matter is not matter, but is really a vacuum. Yet light waves
really do travel at various speeds (traveling slowly within glass,) and optical
materials really are not a vacuum. The atoms of the glass do not absorb waves,
they absorb photons. Our focusing so completely on atom/photon interactions
denies the wave nature of light, pretends that E and M fields don't exist, and also
entirely misses the existence of macroscopic phenomena such as transparency.
It also makes a fundamental mistake: declaring one physics model to be "real,"
then pretending that this can make other useful models UNreal. But all physics
models are merely mental abstractions, they are tools. The photon concept does
not eliminate the fields/waves concept. The worshippers of screwdrivers think
that hammers are a sort of "inferior screwdriver," and should be abolished?
Silly, because hammers really aren't screwdrivers, and screwdrivers are
genuinely worthless for certain tasks.

ELECTROMAGNET COILS USE UP ENERGY TO MAKE

MAGNETISM? Not right.
Sustaining a magnetic field requires no energy. Coils only require energy to
initially create a magnetic field. They also require energy to defeat electrical
friction (resistance); to keep the charges from slowing down as they flow in
wires. But if the resistance is removed, the magnetic field can exist continuously
without any energy input. If electrically frictionless superconductive wire is
used, a coil can be momentarily connected to an energy supply to create the
field. Afterwards the power supply can be removed and both the current and the
magnetic field will continue forever without further energy input.

VOLTAGE

See: What Is Voltage

ELECTRIC CHARGES ONLY FLOW ON THE SURFACES OF WIRES?

Wrong.

During a Direct Current in a simple circuit, the flow of charges takes place
throughout the whole wire. The flow is not just on the surface. If the level of
current is very high, then the wire will become hot, and the current will heat up
the inside of the wire as well as its surface. Thin hollow pipes make poor
conductors; their electrical resistance is too high. To avoid overheating the metal
we should use thick solid bars instead.

There is a persistent 'rumor' that the path for flowing charges is entirely on the
surface of metals. This mistaken idea probably comes about through a
misunderstanding of the nature of electric charge. After all, when some electric
charge is deposited onto a metal object, it distributes itself over the surface of
the object. It makes sense that, since charge is only on the surface of metals, a
flow of charge must take place only on the surface of metals, right? Wrong.
Unfortunately, the word "charge" refers to two different things. When electric
charge is placed on a metal object, the added charge is just a drop in the bucket
compared to the amount of charge already in the neutral metal. "Uncharged"
wires contain an enormous amount of movable charge inside, even though they
may be "neutral" and so have zero charge on average. Are you confused yet?

All metals contain enormous amounts of free, movable electrons. During an

electric current it's these electrons which flow along. However, each electron is
near a proton, and so the metal is said to be "uncharged." In a wire, electric
current is a flow of this "uncharged" charge. Weird but true. Now if we were to
place extra charge upon a wire, that would be like pouring a teacup into the
ocean. The "water level" would rise a tiny bit. The currents inside the "ocean"
would be unaffected. Yet extra charges on a wire also create a very noticeable
electrical imbalance (they attract lint, deflect electroscopes, make sparks, etc.)
It isn't so strange that we might accidentally assume that the extra surface
charges are the metal's only charges. Yet in reality, electric currents happen in
the "ocean" of the wire, and the extra "teacup" of unbalanced charge on the
surface has little effect on the overall charge-flow. The charge-flow (current) is
not just on the surface, and during electric current, the whole "ocean" flows.

A second source of misunderstandings: during high frequency AC, the value of

electric current in a conductor is higher at the surface than it is within the bulk
of the metal. This is called the "skin effect." It is not very important for thin
household wires at 60Hz. Perhaps some people heard about the Skin Effect but
did not realize that it only works for very thick wires or for high frequency AC.
At extremely high frequencies, only the charges in a thin "skin" on the surface of
large wires are the charges which move. For circuits involving high-current and
high-frequency such as radio transmitters, it makes sense to use copper pipes as
conductors. All the charge-flow is on the surface of the conductors, so use
inexpensive hollow conductors. All the heating takes place on the surface, and
not deep within the metal. But note well that the thin "skin" of current is a
*different* thing than the thin "skin" of excess charge-imbalance found on an
electrified wire.

ELECTRIC CHARGES ARE INVISIBLE? No.

Electric charges are easily visible to human eyes, even though their motion is
not. "Electricity" is not invisible! Never has been. When you look at a metal wire,
you can see the charges of electricity which would flow during electric currents.
They are silvery/metallic in color. They give metals their mirrorlike shine. Some
metals have other colors as well, brass and copper for instance. Yet in all cases,
the "metallic"-looking stuff is the metal's electrons. A dense crowd of electrons
looks silvery; "electric fluid" is a silver liquid. And if metals weren't full of
movable electrons, they wouldn't look metallic.

During electric currents in metals, the atoms stay still, but the silvery electron-
stuff flows slowly along. Unfortunately the human eye cannot see the electric
flow. That's part of the reason that "electricity" is so mysterious. Think about it...
in an aquarium full of water, you cannot see any water flowing unless there are
bubbles or dirt being carried along. And whenever clean water is flowing
through a transparent hose, you can't see any flow. Even if the water is flowing
very fast, the water-filled hose just looks like an unmoving glass rod. Same with
wires: there's no bubbles or dirt being carried along by the electric current,
therefore you can't see anything moving. You can see the stuff that flows, just as
you can see the water in an aquarium, but you can't see any flowing stuff.

Even if human eyes could see single electrons, we still couldn't see an electrical
flow since the current is extremely slow. Electrons in metals typically flow at a
few centimeters per hour, even during high currents. That's slower than the
minute hand on a clock! Electric currents ooze along like silly-putty flowing
across a tilted board.

------

SEEING IMBALANCES OF CHARGE

Here's a somewhat-separate topic. While the metallic-looking sea of charges in a

metal is easily seen, imbalances of charge remain invisible. This gets confusing,
since many authors call imbalances of charge by the name "charge." They will
tell you that charge is invisible, yet they really mean that net-charges or charge-
imbalances are invisible.

Wires contain enormous amounts of movable negative charge in the form of

electrons, but they also contain positive charge in the form of protons within the
metal atoms. If the number of protons and electrons are equal, don't they cancel
out? Doesn't that mean that no charge exists? No. It means that no imbalance of
charge exists. It means that, while the wire is full of mobile charge, the net-
charge remains zero.

An "uncharged" wire is still full of charge, it still contains positive and negative
charge in huge but equal quantities. The word "uncharged" doesn't mean
"without charge," instead it means "without charge-imbalance." Yet even if there
are more electrons than protons, or fewer electrons than protons, this
imbalance is invisible. It's invisible because the greatest difference attainable is
yet incredibly tiny when compared to the amount of charge that's already there.
If an object is highly charged; even charged up to millions of volts, the extra
charge is like a teacup poured into an ocean. Fractions of micro-coulombs. The
difference is far too small to be seen.

To get some visual/intuitive insight on this, go play with Red and Green
Electricity, colored plastic sheets representing the populations of mobile charges
within conductors. Red laid on green gives black, no color. Yet the green can still
move relative to the red, even though the green has been cancelled out. In
general, electric currents are flows of this "uncharged charge."

ATOMS HAVE EQUAL NUMBERS OF ELECTRONS AND PROTONS?

Not in conductors!

Many students misunderstand how electric circuits work. One reason for this is
that they think the electrons in a metal are trapped on individual metal atoms.
They also think that an applied voltage is needed to "free" the electrons and to
change metal into a conductor. They aren't aware that the "sea" of free electrons
always exists inside metal all the time. I suspect that this is part of a more
general misconception that all atoms in a material are always neutral. This is