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In other media, any stream of charged objects (ions, for example) may constitute an electric current. To provide a definition of current independent of the type of charge carriers, conventional current is defined as moving in the same direction as the positive charge flow. So, in metals where the charge carriers (electrons) are negative ...
Electricity plays a central role in many modern technologies, serving in electric power where electric current is used to energise equipment, and in electronics dealing with electrical circuits involving active components such as vacuum tubes, transistors, diodes and integrated circuits, and associated passive interconnection technologies.
Galvanism is a term invented by the late 18th-century physicist and chemist Alessandro Volta to refer to the generation of electric current by chemical action. [2] The term also came to refer to the discoveries of its namesake, Luigi Galvani , specifically the generation of electric current within biological organisms and the contraction ...
An electrochemical cell is a device that produces an electric current from energy released by a spontaneous redox reaction. This kind of cell includes the Galvanic cell or Voltaic cell, named after Luigi Galvani and Alessandro Volta, both scientists who conducted experiments on chemical reactions and electric current during the late 18th century.
The usual waveform of alternating current in most electric power circuits is a sine wave, whose positive half-period corresponds with positive direction of the current and vice versa (the full period is called a cycle). "Alternating current" most commonly refers to power distribution, but a wide range of other applications are technically ...
A voltage across a conductor causes an electric field, which accelerates the electrons in the direction of the electric field, causing a drift of electrons which is the electric current. However the electrons collide with atoms which causes them to scatter and randomizes their motion, thus converting kinetic energy to heat ( thermal energy ).
Kirchhoff's circuit laws were originally obtained from experimental results. However, the current law can be viewed as an extension of the conservation of charge, since charge is the product of current and the time the current has been flowing. If the net charge in a region is constant, the current law will hold on the boundaries of the region.
Electrostatics is a branch of physics that studies slow-moving or stationary electric charges. Since classical times , it has been known that some materials, such as amber , attract lightweight particles after rubbing .