Electricity Flashcards
What is static electricity?
Static electricity is an electrical charge that builds up on an object when electrons move from one object to another.
What is current electricity?
The flow of electrons through a wire
How does static electricity work?
When electrons move from one material to another, one object becomes negative and one becomes positively charged. Charges want to balance each other out - electrons jump to positively charged object.
What components make up a circuit?
- Source of electricity
- Insulated metal wires
- Load
What is current?
The number of electrons that go past a point per second.
What is voltage?
Voltage is the force that pushes electrons through a circuit to produce electricity.
What is an ammeter?
An ammeter measures how many electrons past a single point in a second
What is a series?
When the loads are on the same wire and share the batteries voltage
What is a parallel?
When the loads are on their own wires and each has the battery’s full voltage
What is a voltmeter?
A voltmeter measures how much energy each electron has to give/take
What is resistance?
A measure of how difficult it is for an electric current to flow - electrons path is restricted
What is a conductor?
Materials with little resistance, ie. metals
What is an insulator?
Materials with a lot of resistance to the flow of electric charge - ie, plastic, rubber, glass
What is electromagnetism?
- When electricity moves through a wire, it creates a magnet.
- When you move a magnet near a wire, it creates electricity
What is a transformer?
A transformer reduces the voltage of the source to the amount required by an appliance.
What is an Earth Wire?
Earth Wire is where the electricity flows into the ground instead of through a person touching a metal casing that is live.
What is a Fuse?
A wire with a low melting point that when the current is too high (which creates heat) the wire melts and breaks the circuit.
What is a circuit breaker?
A special switch that breaks the current if it is too high - protects appliances
What is a safety switch?
A switch that cuts the power very fast if the current is too high - protects people
