How Stuff Works Research Paper

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Physics Project Julie Gay What is electricity, and how does it have anything to do with a battery or our body? According to “How Stuff Works”, “When you load a battery into an electronic device, you're not simply unleashing the electricity and sending it to do a task. Negatively charged electrons wish to travel to the positive portion of the battery -- and if they have to rev up your personal electric shaver along the way to get there, they'll do it. On a very simple level, it's much like water flowing down a stream and being forced to turn a water wheel to get from point A to point B.” So, what exactly does that mean to us? It means that electricity is a force that powers out world and our bodies (How stuff works, 2010). Humans bend electricity…show more content…
Technically, electricity is created by particles that carry a charge, usually electrons. In a wire or any other conductor, electrons move freely around the stationary atomic nuclei making up the conductor. Electrical current is the movement of these charged particles. In most conductors, the flow of electrons is impeded by some resistance, which can be thought of as collisions of electrons with the nuclei or other electrons. This creates an atomic-level "friction" which produces heat (and light in some cases, such as a light bulb or glowing heater element). The important thing to remember is that an electron does not need to travel all the way through a wire for a device on the other end to receive power. When you turn on the tap to fill a glass, the water company doesn't have to pump a glassful of water from their facility all the way to your house - there is already water in the pipe, and they just need to add a little more on their end for some to come out your tap. If some electrons are pushed into one end of the wire, some will come out the other end because the uncharged metal in the wire already contains a sea of electrons(Matt Kramer of Wisconsin). For example, a circuit board has wires on

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