Chapter I

WHAT IS ELECTRICITY AND MAGNETISM?

WHAT IS ELECTRICITY?

Electricity is a form of energy. Electricity is the flow of electrons. All matter is made up of atoms, and an atom has a center, called a nucleus. The nucleus contains positively charged particles called protons and uncharged particles called neutrons. The nucleus of an atom is surrounded by negatively charged particles called electrons. The negative charge of an electron is equal to the positive charge of a proton, and the number of electrons in an atom is usually equal to the number of protons. When the balancing force between protons and electrons is upset by an outside force, an atom may gain or lose an electron. When electrons are "lost" from an atom, the free movement of these electrons constitutes an electric current.

Electricity is a basic part of nature and it is one of our most widely used forms of energy. We get electricity, which is a secondary energy source, from the conversion of other sources of energy, like coal, natural gas, oil, nuclear power and other natural sources, which are called primary sources. Many cities and towns were built alongside waterfalls (a primary source of mechanical energy) that turned water wheels to perform work. Before electricity generation began slightly over 100 years ago, houses were lit with kerosene lamps, food was cooled in iceboxes, and rooms were warmed by wood-burning or coal-burning stoves. Beginning with Benjamin Franklin's experiment with a kite one stormy night in Philadelphia, the principles of electricity gradually became understood. In the mid-1800s, everyone's life changed with the inventionof the electric light bulb. Prior to 1879, electricity had been used in arc lights for outdoor lighting. The lightbulb's invention used electricity to bring indoor lighting to our homes.

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A light Bulb

The light bulb, an early application of electricity, operates by Joule heating: the passage of current through resistance generating heat.

WHAT IS MAGNETISM?

Magnetism is a property of materials that respond at an atomic or subatomic level to an applied magnetic field. For example, the most well known form of magnetism is ferromagnetism such that some ferromagnetic materials produce their own persistent magnetic field. However, all materials are influenced to a greater or lesser degree by the presence of a magnetic field. Some are attracted to a magnetic field (paramagnetism); others are repulsed by a magnetic field (diamagnetism); others have a much more complex relationship with an applied magnetic field. Substances that are negligibly affected by magnetic fields are known as non-magnetic substances. They include copper, aluminium, gases, and plastic.

The magnetic state (or phase) of a material depends on temperature (and other variables such as pressure and applied magnetic field) so that a material may exhibit more than one form of magnetism depending on its temperature, etc.

A short History of the Electricity and Magnetism

Aristotle attributes the first of what could be called a scientific discussion on magnetism to Thales, who lived from about 625 BCE to about 545 BCE. Around the same time in ancient India, the Indian surgeon, Sushruta, was the first to make use of the magnet for surgical purposes.

In ancient China, the earliest literary reference to magnetism lies in a 4th century BCE book called Book of the Devil Valley Master: "The lodestone makes iron come or it attracts it." The earliest mention of the attraction of a needle appears in a work composed between AD 20 and 100 (Louen-heng): "A lodestone attracts a needle." The ancient Chinese scientist Shen Kuo (1031–1095) was the first person to write of the magnetic needle compass and that it improved the accuracy of navigation by employing the astronomical concept of true north (Dream Pool Essays, AD 1088), and by the 12th century the Chinese were known to use the lodestone compass for navigation.

Alexander Neckham, by 1187, was the first in Europe to describe the compass and its use for navigation. In 1269, Peter Peregrinus de Maricourt wrote the Epistola de magnete, the first extant treatise describing the properties of magnets. In 1282, the properties of magnets and the dry compass were discussed by Al-Ashraf, a Yemeni physicist, astronomer, and geographer.

In 1600, William Gilbert published his De Magnete, Magneticisque Corporibus, et de Magno Magnete Tellure (On the Magnet and Magnetic Bodies, and on the Great Magnet the Earth). In this work he describes many of his experiments with his model earth called the terrella. From his experiments, he concluded that the Earth was itself magnetic and that this was the reason compasses pointed north (previously, some believed that it was the pole star (Polaris) or a large magnetic island on the north pole that attracted the compass).

An understanding of the relationship between electricity and magnetism began in 1819 with work by Hans Christian Oersted, a professor at the University of Copenhagen, who discovered more or less by accident that an electric current could influence a compass needle. This landmark experiment is known as Oersted's Experiment. Several other experiments followed, with Andrй-Marie Ampиre, Carl Friedrich Gauss, Michael Faraday, andothers finding further links between magnetism and electricity. James Clerk Maxwell synthesized and expanded these insights into Maxwell's equations, unifying electricity, magnetism, and optics into the field of electromagnetism. In 1905, Einstein used these laws in motivating his theory of special relativity, requiring that the laws held true in all inertial reference frames.

Electromagnetism has continued to develop into the 21st century, being incorporated into the more fundamental theories of gauge theory, quantum electrodynamics, electroweak theory, and finally the standard model.

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A Selenoid’s Magnetic Flux

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Hierarchy of types of magnetism

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Benjamin Franklin

HOW IS ELECTRICITY GENERATED?

An electric generator is a device for converting mechanical energy into electrical energy. The process is based on the relationship between magnetism and electricity. When a wire or any other electrically conductive material moves across a magnetic field, an electric current occurs in the wire. The large generators used by the electric utility industry have a stationary conductor. A magnet attached to the end of a rotating shaft is positioned inside a stationary conducting ring that is wrapped with a long, continuous piece of wire. When the magnet rotates, it induces a small electric current in each section of wire as it passes. Each section of wire constitutes a small, separate electric conductor. All the small currents of individual sections add up to one current of considerable size. This current is what is used for electric power.

HOW ARE TURBINES USED TO GENERATE ELECTRICITY?

An electric utility power station uses either a turbine, engine, water wheel, or other similar machine to drive an electric generator or a device that converts mechanical or chemical energy to electricity. Steam turbines, internal-combustion engines, gas combustion turbines, water turbines, and wind turbines are the most common methods to generate electricity.

Most of the electricity in the United States is produced in steam turbines. A turbine converts the kinetic energy of a moving fluid (liquid or gas) to mechanical energy. Steam turbines have a series of blades mounted on a shaft against which steam is forced, thus rotating the shaft connected to the generator. In a fossil-fueled steam turbine, the fuel is burned in a furnace to heat water in a boiler to produce steam.

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Coal, petroleum (oil), and natural gas are burned in large furnaces to heat water to make steam that in turn pushes on the blades of a turbine. Did you know that coal is the largest single primary source of energy used to generate electricity in the United States? In 1998, more than half (52%) of the county's 3.62 trillion kilowatthours of electricity used coal as its source of energy.

Natural gas, in addition to being burned to heat water for steam, can also be burned to produce hot combustion gases that pass directly through a turbine, spinning the blades of the turbine to generate electricity. Gas turbines are commonly used when electricity utility usage is in high demand. In 1998, 15% of the nation's electricity was fueled by natural gas.

Petroleum can also be used to make steam to turn a turbine. Residual fuel oil, a product refined from crude oil, is often the petroleum product used in electric plants that use petroleum to make steam. Petroleum was used to generate less than three percent (3%) of all electricity generated in U.S. electricity plants in 1998.

Nuclear power is a method in which steam is produced by heating water through a process called nuclear fission. In a nuclear power plant, a reactor contains a core of nuclear fuel, primarily enriched uranium. When atoms of uranium fuel are hit by neutrons they fission (split), releasing heat and more neutrons. Under controlled conditions, these other neutrons can strike more uranium atoms, splitting more atoms, and so on. Thereby, continuous fission can take place, forming a chain reaction releasing heat. The heat is used to turn water into steam, that, in turn, spins a turbine that generates electricity. Nuclear power is used to generate 19% of all the country's electricity.

Hydropower, the source for 9% of U.S. electricity generation, is a process in which flowing water is used to spin a turbine connected to a generator. There are two basic types of hydroelectric systems that produce electricity. In the first system, flowing water accumulates in reservoirs created by the use of dams. The water falls through a pipe called a penstock and applies pressure against the turbine blades to drive the generator to produce electricity. In the second system, called run-of-river, the force of the river current (rather than falling water) applies pressure to the turbine blades to produce electricity.

HOW IS A TRANSFORMER USED?

To solve the problem of sending electricity over long distances, George Westinghouse developed a device called a transformer. The transformer allowed electricity to be efficiently transmitted over long distances. This made it possible to supply electricity to homes and businesses located far from the electric generating plant.

Despite its great importance in our daily lives, most of us rarely stop to think what life would be like without electricity. Yet like air and water, we tend to take electricity for granted. Everyday, we use electricity to do many functions for us -- from lighting and heating/cooling our homes, to being the power source for televisions and computers. Electricity is a controllable and convenient form of energy used in the applications of heat, light and power.

Today, the United States (U.S.) electric power industry is organized to ensure that an adequate supply of electricity is available to meet all demand requirements at any given instant.

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