Welcome to You Ask Andy

Gerald Cross, age 11, of Eureka, Calif., for his question:

Does science know all about electricity?

We know how to generate electricity and put it to work for us. We have a good idea what goes on inside the wire circuit carrying an electric current. But why electricity behaves as it does and how it is related to magnetism are still mysteries. Countless men have puzzled about the nature of electricity through the ages. No one has solved it, Who knows? Perhaps you or a scientist of your generation will discover the final secrets of the giant force, electricity.

The first to notice and record the magic force was Thales, a sage of ancient Greece some 600 years B.C. Thales rubbed. a bit of amber on his robe and noticed how it attracted bits of lint. Amber is a golden glassy stone which looks like frozen honey. The Greek word for it is elektron ‑ which is why we call the magic force electricity,

No one seems to have thought much more about the curious force; until about 1600 A.D. Then Gilbert, an English scientist, found that glass, mica, diamonds, sulphur and lots of other substances also had electricity when rubbed. He learned a little more about how it acts, but ho had no idea what it was.

More facts about how electricity acts came to light at the end of the 18th century and all through the 19th century. Volta of Italy made the first electric battery. He learned how to generate the magic force with chemicals ‑ which was a great step forward. Oersted of Denmark showed that an electric current affects a magnetic noodle. Ampere of France showed that an electric current actually produces magnetism. Working with Volta's battery he made a simple electromagnet. But these men had no idea of why certain chemicals could push an electric current through a wire circuit or why electric current made magnetism.

About 1830, Faraday of England and Henry of America found. how to use magnetism to push magnetism to bush electric current through a wire circuit. Unknown to each other, those men invented the dynamo or generator. The giant electricity was tamed, for it was now possibly to make power on a large scale. These men knew how to harness the giant but not why it could be harnessed.

In 1949, Millikan of America found what happens to make electric current. He proved that it is a stream of atomic particles moving inside the wire circuit. These particles are electrons. When countless numbers of them move together in the same direction through a wire circuit to and from a generator we get electric current. In direct current the electrons move together in one direction; in alternating current they move together to and fro.

A generator makes electric current by spinning copper coils through a magnetic field. This creates a push called voltage which causes the electrons 6o react throughout a wire circuit. We do not know why voltage causes electrons to move. And we do not understand the full relationship between electricity and magnetism. If you plan on being a scientist, there, now, is an assignment for you to solve.

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