Electricity Flashcards
Subatomic particle that carries negative electric charge and generates electromagnetic fields
Electron
A two-terminalelectronic componentthat conductscurrentprimarily in one direction (asymmetricconductance); it has low (ideally zero)resistancein one direction, and high (ideally infinite)resistancein the other.
Diode
An extremely long fish that hunts for prey using small electric shocks
Electric eel (Electrophorus electricus)
The ability of a system to store an electric charge; the ratio of the change in an electric charge in a system to the corresponding change in its electric potential
Capacitance
SI Unit of Electric Current
Ampere
What do DC and AC stand for?
Direct current and alternating current
SI unit of conductance
Siemens
It used to be called the Mho, which is Ohm written backwards.
The production of an electromotive force (i.e., voltage) across an electrical conductor in a changing magnetic field.
(Electromagnetic) induction
One of the earliest researchers into electricity, who believed that friction rendered amber magnetic
Thales (of Miletus)
SI unit of resistance
Ohm
SI Unit of Electric Potential
Volt
British inventor of the lightbulb and pioneer in photography, inventing bromide paper.
Joseph Swan
A semiconductor device with at least three terminals used toamplifyorswitchelectronicsignals andelectrical power; a voltageorcurrentapplied to one pair of terminals controls the current through another pair of terminals.
(Invented in 1947 by American physicistsJohn BardeenandWalter Brattainwhile working underWilliam ShockleyatBell Labs. They shared the 1956Nobel Prize in Physicsfor their achievement.)
Transistor
William Gilbert coined the New Latin word electricus from elektron, the Greek word for what?
Amber
19th century scientist who contributed to the concept of electromagnetic fields, notably the principles underlying electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism and electrolysis.
Michael Faraday
An atom or molecule that has a net electrical charge
Ion
SI unit of electrical capacitance
Farad
Inventor of the steam turbine, which is the basis behind nuclear, geothermal, and fossil fuel-driven energy
Sir Charles Parsons
Engineer best known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current (AC) electricity supply system; his name is also the SI unit of magnetic flux density
Nikola Tesla
the effect that causes the emission of electrons or other free carriers when light hits a material, proven by Albert Einstein in 1921
The photoelectric effect
Scottish mathematical physicist who formulated the classical theory of electromagnetic radiation, bringing together for the first time electricity, magnetism, and light as different manifestations of the same phenomenon in his set of coupled differential equations
James Clerk Maxwell
Danish scientist who discovered that electric currents create magnetic fields, which was the first connection found between electricity and magnetism
Hans Christian Ørsted
SI Unit of Power
Watt
Inventor of the first electrical battery that could continuously provide an electric current to a circuit, copper and zinc discs separated by cardboard or felt spacers soaked in salt water (the electrolyte)
Alessandro Volta
the battery was called a voltaic pile
English scientist who was the first to systematically experiment with electrical conduction after his 1729 discovery that his “thread-wire” could carry charge from one object to another
Stephen Gray
Discovered the photoelectric effect, and has an SI unit named after him.
Heinrich Hertz
Substances that produce an electrically conducting solution when dissolved in a polar solvent, such as water
Electrolyte
French physicist and inventor of the solenoid (a term coined by him) and the electrical telegraph
André-Marie Ampère
German physicist whose current law and voltage law are used to solve series and parallel circuits
Gustav Kirchhoff
German physicist who found that there is a direct proportionality between the potential difference (voltage) applied across a conductor and the resultant electric current
Georg Ohm
This relationship is known as Ohm’s law.
SI Unit of energy
Joule
Device that restarts a stopped heart via a massive electric shock; commonly abbreviated AED
Automated External Defibrilator
Discoverer of bioelectromagnetics, demonstrating that electricity was the medium by which neurons passed signals to the muscles
Luigi Galvani
A type of electromagnet, the purpose of which is to generate a controlled magnetic field through a coil wound into a tightly packed helix; from the Greek for “pipe-shaped”
solenoid
American founding father who invented, among other things, the lightning rod, and an electric stove, and discovered the conservation of charge
Benjamin Franklin
SI unit of electric charge
Coulomb
