See this article for more details on how charge is measured. Our daily experience makes us intimately familiar with gravity, but electricity can seem kind of weird. Gravity has only one type it only attracts. Opposite charges attract like charges repel.Ĭompare this to gravity. The interaction between the two types is captured by this most basic rule of electricity, If you fiddle around with static electricity long enough you eventually conclude there are two types of electric charge. Scientists made up a name for what causes this force. Even though electric force is invisible, we know it is there because we see and feel and measure the attraction or repulsion. In that way electric force bears a resemblance to gravity. This electric force seems act at a distance (the objects don’t have to be touching). We observe a force between rubbed objects. It started with static electricity, also called electrostatics, where you rub materials against each other, like a balloon on a sweater. Our awareness of electricity comes from carefully observing nature. Voltage is similar to the change of potential energy that happens to a mass when it’s lifted or lowered.Įlectrical power is the product of voltage and current, $p = i \, v$, in units of watts. Voltage is the honorary name of electric potential difference. The key difference is there is one type of water but there are two types of charge, moving in opposite directions. It is similar to the flow of water in a river or garden hose. We create our first mental models for these basic electrical quantities.Ĭurrent is the flow of charge. Charge, current, and voltage are the cornerstone concepts of electricity.
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