Electricity is all around us yet we cannot see it. Although we can see its effects in everything from lightning strikes to an LED light glowing at night. However, what is electricity becomes a complicated question as we dig deeper. Put simply, electricity is the presence and flow of electrons through conductors such as copper wires.
What is Electricity 101: How It Works
There are two types of electric charges. Positive charges that push, and negative charges that pull each other when they are not touching. Electricity behaves like a magnet this way. In fact, electric charges create magnetic fields around themselves.
The universe comprises an uncountable number of these positive and negative charges. We call the positive ones protons, and the negative ones electrons. They stick to each other because opposites attract in the world of physics, magnets, and perhaps love too. When protons and electrons combine, they form atoms. This is a big concept…and you thought we were only going to answer one question.
Electricity 102: What is an Electric Current?
Electrons are able to move around in a conductor. We call any material that prevents them moving an insulator. The electrons will bounce around excitedly in a conductor, but they need an electric field to travel in the direction to which that field points.
We create an electric field when we connect battery terminals to a conductor, for example a copper wire on either side of an electrical device such as a light bulb. The electrons will flow through this electric circuit for as long as there are ions inside the battery to exchange through the electrolyte. We call this flow an electric current. What is electricity? Electricity is the flow of this current, including from our deep cycle, lead-acid batteries.
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