Electricity is the energy that moves our world. Contemporary society could not live without electric current, since it powers our electronic devices, washing machines, refrigerators and the most basic of the objects in our lives, the light bulb.
Although electricity is no longer so mysterious in the 21st century, when it was “invented” it represented a true revolution, in fact, it motivated the beginning of the second industrial revolution.
How many types of electricity are there? This is what we are going to find out next.
Electricity is a type of energy that is a consequence of how matter is formed. Substances are made up of atoms, small balls that have subatomic particles. In its center we find neutrons and protons, while rotating around it we find electrons. It is these last particles that are responsible for electricity, components of atoms with a negative charge.
Electrical energy is produced by the flow of electrons from a conductive material, usually a metal. This energy has been fundamental for contemporary life as we know it, since it is the energy that makes all our electronic devices work, from the most complex one such as the computer or mobile phone with which you can read this article. even the simplest one, such as the light bulb in our room.
Electricity is a phenomenon that is studied by electromagnetism, an area of physics. The electromagnetic force is one of the four fundamental forces of nature along with gravity and the weak and strong nuclear forces Today, electricity for human use is generated, transported, stored and consumed, being transformed into other types of energy useful for modern life, such as thermal, kinetic, chemical and light energy.
Although we could talk about different types of electricity depending on the way it is produced or the use that is made of it in the end, there are really only two main types of electricity: dynamic and static.
1. Static electricity
As its name indicates, static electricity It is one in which current does not flow and, as a consequence, there is no magnetism This type of energy is what is produced in non-conducting materials, where the induced electrical charge remains at rest. That is, electricity “does not move” because no current can flow in non-conductive materials.
This type of electricity is produced in insulating materials that, when rubbed against each other, cause them to become electrically charged. This can be verified through a simple home experiment: if we take a rubber balloon and a piece of plastic, two conductive materials, and rub them together, an interesting situation arises. One loses some electrons, while the other ends up gaining them For this reason the balloon is able to stick to a wall, while the plastic piece is able to attract small pieces of paper.
Another example is taking a piece of amber and a woolen cloth. When these two objects are rubbed against each other, an electronic imbalance occurs in the amber, which gives it an electrical charge. The friction causes electrons to travel from the cloth to the amber, making the amber negatively charged and the cloth positively charged.
This charge will reside in the amber until it is balanced. The substance that loses electrons becomes positively charged, while the substance that gains electrons becomes negatively charged. These charges are temporary and remain on the surface of the material.
Dynamic electricity is produced when electrons are released from one substance and flow into another material, as is the case of the electricity that comes to our home through our electric company. Electrons travel through an electrical circuit made up of conductive materials, such as the metal inside the cables.
Electric current is the flow of electrons that runs through a material and can be of two types:
dynamic electricity It is the one we use the most in our daily lives and is responsible for humanity being able to advance at an overwhelming pace in the last 150 years Thanks to this type of energy, specifically alternating current, the second industrial revolution could have originated.
Electromagnetic field
Electromagnetic fields are phenomena that occur due to electromagnetic interaction These types of fields are made up of a combination of different phenomena:
An electric field produced by a stationary electric charge
A magnetic field, produced by the movement of electric charges (current)
Electromagnetic fields are generated locally by any time-varying distribution of electric charge and electric current. The electromagnetic field propagates in space in the form of electromagnetic waves. An electric field can create a magnetic field as in an electromagnet. On the contrary, A magnetic field can also cause an electric field, as in a generator
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Electricity in nature
There are several natural phenomena in which we can find electricity. Next we are going to talk about a few phenomena in which we can find electricity naturally.
1. Lightning
Lightning that can be seen during a storm They occur due to the imbalance of electrical potential between the atmosphere and the ground
The friction of clouds and water droplets with the air causes it to become charged with electrons, giving rise to static electricity. As a result of the entire process, the electricity that is stored in the clouds is released through a rapid and violent discharge in the form of lightning.
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Human beings produce electricity artificially, but this does not mean that there are no animals that have the ability to produce this type of energy naturally. Some animals are capable of generating electric fields as a defense a well-known example being electric rays and some species of eels.
Others, however, can perceive the magnetic fields generated by the electrical charge inside their bodies and thus detect their prey, as is the case of sharks with their Lorenzini blisters. However, What most animals have in common is that we have nervous impulses with which our nervous system works which are a universal example in the animal kingdom of bioelectricity.
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3. Earth’s magnetosphere
The Earth has a magnetosphere, a magnetic field that is detected by compasses and is produced by rotational movement of our planet because its heart, the inner core, is made of iron. It is thanks to this magnetic field and the particles of different substances that reach us from the Sun that at the poles we can observe the northern and southern lights.
