Electricity Knowledge Unique to Engineers That is Worth Knowing
Most people don’t realize just how bizarre electricity truly is. They see it as a simple force that powers our devices, but electrical engineers understand there’s a lot more going on behind the scenes. Here are some interesting things to note about electricity.
- Electrons actually move very slowly through wires – about 1 foot per hour! Electric current isn’t electrons zipping along at the speed of light like most people imagine. Instead, when you flip a switch electrons nudge each other along in a sort of “wave” that travels at the speed of light. But each individual electron meanders lazily through the wire.
2. Wires are actually full of “electron traffic jams.” All those seemingly free-flowing electrons are actually bunching up and pushing each other as they nudge their way through the wire. This constant bumping and shoving creates resistance that wastes energy as heat.
3. Electric fields have “memory.” Even after you turn off a circuit, phantom electric fields remain for a short time, remembering the previous configuration. This “capacitance” allows circuits to briefly store electrons and discharge them in a controlled manner.
4. You can “bend” electric fields with magnets. This seems surprising to some at first, but we learn to manipulate electric fields using magnetic forces. This combination of electricity and magnetism unlocks a wide range of technologies from motors to generators.
5. There are “ghost voltages” everywhere! Static electric fields inherently exist all around us from natural phenomena like lightning and tribocharging. We learn to filter out this background “noise” to sense useful voltages.