Describe how an electric current is generated and transported.

Question #1.

a) Describe how an electric current is generated and transported.

b) Assess the current state of national grid in the United States, as well as any challenges in updating this grid.

Question #2.

Read the article titled “Lost in Migration: Earth’s Magnetic Field Overdue a Flip” located at http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/03/us-science-earth-magneticfield-idUSBRE8920X620121003 (Links to an external site.).

Read the article titled Earth’s Inconstant Magnetic Field located at http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/29dec_magneticfield.html (Links to an external site.).

a) Describe how the Earth’s magnetic field is generated, and how it has changed throughout Earth’s history.

b) Analyze how a magnetic reversal might impact human activities on Earth.

Describe how an electric current is generated and transported.

Introduction

The electric current is a flow of electrons through a conductor. Currents flow in one direction, called the direction of flow, because the negative ends of the conductor are at the negative terminal and the positive ends are at the positive terminal. If you have ever seen an electric circuit with two wires crossing each other, then you have seen an example of a potential difference between them if there is an electric field between them. If these two bodies were not connected by an electrical conductor, they would not have any potential difference between them because there would be no way to create one! You might wonder how something can move without touching anything else; this happens when there is no path for electrons from one point in space to another point elsewhere (or within itself).

The electric current is a flow of electrons through a conductor.

Electricity is the flow of electrons through a conductor. Electrons are negatively charged particles that carry a negative charge, or voltage. When you touch your body to something else (like a metal pole), you create an electric field that attracts electrons from your body to the metal pole. The movement of these electrons creates an electric current in the wire or other conducting material, which can be measured by taking measurements at various places on a circuit’s path and multiplying them together to get an idea about how much energy has been transferred over time.

Currents flow in one direction, called the direction of flow, because the negative ends of the conductor are at the negative terminal and the positive ends are at the positive terminal.

Electric currents flow in one direction, called the direction of flow. This is because the electrons travel from a negative charge (at a positive terminal) to a negative charge (at a negative terminal). The direction of current flow is also called the direction of electron flow.

Currents can only flow when a voltage difference exists between two points in an electric circuit.

Electric current can only flow when a voltage difference exists between two points in an electric circuit. Voltage is the difference in electric potential between two points and it’s measured as volts (V). The unit of measure for voltage is called “volt”.

A current-carrying wire consists of two conducting materials; one is negative and one positive. If you put a battery across this wire, you will feel an electric force pushing on your hand. This force is caused by electrons flowing through the wire from one end to another via conduction through materials with different resistances (i.e., different electrical resistances).

Two bodies connected by an electrical conductor have a potential difference between them if there is an electric field between them.

The electric field is a vector quantity associated with a charged body. The electric field can be thought of as the space around a test charge that has been moved away from its charge and through which other charges move.

The force on an electron moving in any direction through a uniform field is proportional to its charge and inversely proportional to its velocity:

We can send energy over long distances with electricity

In this section, you will learn about the process of sending energy over long distances with electricity.

Electrical energy can be used to do work. When electrical current flows through wires or other conductors, it generates heat. This is called “thermal” energy. The amount of thermal energy produced by an electric current depends on the temperature difference between where it starts and where it ends (the “voltage”). If two wires are connected together with a capacitor between them (like two bolts), then when one wire is hot and another cold they will start discharging at different rates until they reach equilibrium–when both wires have equal charge levels but aren’t oppositely charged anymore because they’ve traveled through each other twice! This phenomenon is called electrostatic induction; essentially what happens is that when you throw sand into water near shorelines before an ocean wave hits them both simultaneously…well…it doesn’t really matter how much sand there was beforehand because now all those grains have been displaced by saltwater molecules so now there are fewer total molecules present in our aquatic utopia than before so we’re talking about 2% less salt per gram instead of 100% just because one person tried something new today.”

Conclusion

We have covered what an electric current is and how it’s created. We also saw how the direction of flow can be changed by changing the voltage between points in an electric circuit. You may have also learned that two bodies connected by an electrical conductor have a potential difference between them if there is an electric field between them. This means that we can send energy over long distances with electricity!