In science, electricity is a form of energy resulting from the movement of charged particles. Energy is a number representing a capacity to do work and conserved in total whilst charge is a particle property generating an electromagnetic field that influences other charged particles.
My view of energy is as the living, proactive fundamental in all particulate matter and in the many forms of radiated light energy. Particles are forever either desiring or rejecting the radiated energies of space released by other particles. Their motions are self determined and not forced upon them. Why particle energies and their structures want and want to control energy I don’t know and we may never know, but they do.
Neutron energies will create or remove electrons and protons as befits their energy needs. The structures they form and change are about better satisfying their energy needs and particles in them cooperate and have roles to play in doing just that. The more mobile electron’s role is as a getter and deliverer of energy.
The Living Actions in an Electrical Circuit
The chosen chemicals of the battery in our circuit want to change to a more energy efficient chemical structure. Their doing so involves them taking electrons from the positive battery terminal and its associated wire, creating a deficit there. It also involves the releasing of electrons into the negative terminal and its wire, creating a surplus there
Between the deficit and surplus, as across the open switch or battery, we have a voltage, that we measure by observing the electron movements through a high resistance between them. Often thought of as electrical pressure, the build up of voltage slows and then stops the chemical action as the battery positive side protons won’t release more electrons to the chemical desires and the negative side structures don’t want any more.
On closing the circuit switch the more dense electrons on one side of the switch move to satisfy the energy demanding proton surpluses on other side of the switch. Their movements trigger, via their light speed photon interactions, electron movements throughout the circuit. Be clear the electrons are not being forced to move they are choosing to do so.
The electron movements result in a reduction in terminal voltage which the battery chemicals immediately start to restore. In some batteries, like those in your car, the chemical reactions are reversible and achieved by applying a reverse and higher voltage created by another energy source (in your car its engine driven alternator). Having read the above my hope is that you can or are starting to see that electricity is entirely about the living nature of particles and their structures ever intent on doing what is best for them in any changing energy environment.
History had decided electrical current flowed from positive to negative before electrons were discovered and seen to be moving in the opposite direction. In circuits electrons move between proton serving locations, protons willingly releasing electrons as other electrons seek to supply their energy desires.
Individual electron progress around a circuit is slow, though the changes they make are rapid and throughout the circuit as the light speed photon emissions they make trigger other particle responses. A one amp current is 6.25 billion, billion outer electron movements past a wire location every single second. Yet electron progress is slow as such a vast number of outer electrons is there in a tiny fraction of a millimetre length of wire.
With the switch closed current I flows and energy released by the chemical action is being expended in the whole electrical circuit at the rate of I x V per second ( V being the voltage pressure that is in part determining the I flow). Little of that energy is involved in the process of moving electrons along the copper wire because its outer electrons are loosely energy linked to the protons of any one atom.
Nearly all of the energy released is having to persuade electrons in the resistance part of the circuit to move. In our circuit that resistance part is the tungsten filament within the bulb vacuum or inert gas; its atoms have a much stronger hold on their outer valence electrons. But move they do as the surplus and deficit either side of the filament, at almost full battery voltage, are persuading them to move. The resistance R, like the velocity V, plays its part in determining I and so features in Ohms law V = I x R
Much interacting energy is involved as the tungsten electrons try to stay linked to their parent atoms. Their resistance to movement builds as they oppose and absorb some of the energy before deciding to move and find another atom location from which they can energy serve tungsten nucleons. The extra energy they have enables them to displace not only outer tungsten electrons but those nearer to nuclei.
A range of photon energies are being released as tungsten electrons displaced from energy exchanging locations in atoms and with gained energies return to locations where they don’t want and give up those gained energies. The result is the output of photons that are in energy terms in the infra red hat, visible light and ultra violet range. It’s a very inefficient way to get white light.
Described above is a direct current (d.c.) electrical circuit involving a battery whose desired chemical change outputs electrical energy. That electrical energy is then active, outputting thermal heat and light energy from the tungsten atoms. The description is fine but it fails to explain how the energy activities in the tungsten part of the circuit determine the energy that the battery is outputting.
In fact, you might well ask how it is that your mains energy supply, that may be a hundred miles away from you, is made aware of and is able to almost immediately respond to the electrical energies that you and the many users like you are using. I will try to answer that in my blog that deals with alternating current (a.c.) and the u.k. mains supply