What is Electric: Definition and 1000 Discussions

Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by Maxwell's equations. Various common phenomena are related to electricity, including lightning, static electricity, electric heating, electric discharges and many others.
The presence of an electric charge, which can be either positive or negative, produces an electric field. The movement of electric charges is an electric current and produces a magnetic field.
When a charge is placed in a location with a non-zero electric field, a force will act on it. The magnitude of this force is given by Coulomb's law. If the charge moves, the electric field would be doing work on the electric charge. Thus we can speak of electric potential at a certain point in space, which is equal to the work done by an external agent in carrying a unit of positive charge from an arbitrarily chosen reference point to that point without any acceleration and is typically measured in volts.
Electricity is at the heart of many modern technologies, being used for:

Electric power where electric current is used to energise equipment;
Electronics which deals with electrical circuits that involve active electrical components such as vacuum tubes, transistors, diodes and integrated circuits, and associated passive interconnection technologies.Electrical phenomena have been studied since antiquity, though progress in theoretical understanding remained slow until the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The theory of electromagnetism was developed in the 19th century, and by the end of that century electricity was being put to industrial and residential use by electrical engineers. The rapid expansion in electrical technology at this time transformed industry and society, becoming a driving force for the Second Industrial Revolution. Electricity's extraordinary versatility means it can be put to an almost limitless set of applications which include transport, heating, lighting, communications, and computation. Electrical power is now the backbone of modern industrial society.

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  1. L

    Direction of electric field vector on the surface of charged conductor

    Consider a negatively charged spherical conductor. On the surface of it, what is the direction of its electric field? Well, the definition of the direction of an electric field is the direction a positive test charge would go if placed at that point. But... it wouldn't move anywhere! So is the...
  2. J

    Solar panel conundrum -- Not enough power?

    I have a student trying to build a simple solar powered vehicle for a high school design thinking class. He solar panel produces about 3.1 V as measured on a multimeter, but will not power the electric motor she had chosen. She tested the motor with a pair of AA batteries (2.9 V on multimeter)...
  3. Krazen017

    How can I find the sustain time of an electric guitar?

    How can I find the sustaining time of an electric guitar? The influence of other components besides the strings can be neglected. I need it for my term paper.
  4. A

    I Electrical breakdown in air in the presence of a single charge

    Suppose there is an electric charge of 350 micro coulombs in space. The electric field at a distance of less than one meter will be more than 3,000,000 volts/meter considering that this field is greater than the electric breakdown of air and the charge has no place to discharge, what happens...
  5. .Scott

    Cement Capacitors based on carbon black and concrete for use in energy storage

    A recent article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) describes a large electric capacitors based on carbon black and concrete. The device would be used for electric power storage - often in proximity to the electric power demand, for example, a home.
  6. EleSuki

    B Frequency of EM Waves from Monitor for Black/White & Color Images

    I am using an old monitor (MITSUBISHI RDT27IWLM). The power consumption changes when the screen is white or black, but does the frequency of the weak electromagnetic waves emitted from the monitor change? Or is the frequency the same, only the output is stronger/weaker?
  7. paulimerci

    Find the magnitude of the electric field at point P

    There are two identical spheres with the same charge that are the vertices of an equilateral triangle. ##+3 \mu C## will exert an outward electric field, which is drawn in the FBD below (see the attached pic), Since the horizontal force components (1x and 2x) are equal and opposite at point P...
  8. paulimerci

    Find the magnitude of the electric force from 3 charges at vertices of a cube

    There are three charges with +1 μC and −1 μC, are placed at the opposite corners of a cube with edges of length 1 cm, and the distance from P to B is 1cm 2. I labeled them as A, P, and B, which is shown in the diagram below. Since we need to find the magnitude of the charge at point P and the...
  9. W

    B Exploring the Electric Field of a Moving Charge

    How does an electric field of a moving charge, for example a moving electron, inside a wire looks like? Does it looks like this with distorted circular radial lines?
  10. M

    Electric field amplitude question regarding intensity calculations

    My question is specifically with calculating the intensity. The book solution is I=P/(4*pi*r^2) but would this not give me a weaker electrical amplitude in the final calculation after plugging it in to I=(1/2)*√(ε0/μ0)*(E02) ?
  11. Ahmedbadr132

    Power Efficiency of Linear Piezo Electric Motors

    Hi I want to know the power efficiency of linear piezo electric motors in percentile.
  12. L

    Divergence of the Electric field of a point charge

    Hi, unfortunately, I am not sure if I have calculated the task correctly The electric field of a point charge looks like this ##\vec{E}(\vec{r})=\frac{Q}{4 \pi \epsilon_0}\frac{\vec{r}}{|\vec{r}|^3}## I have now simply divided the electric field into its components i.e. #E_x , E-y, E_z#...
  13. N

    I Electric Field Shielding by Conducting Sheets

    Dear Experts, When a thin conducting sheet with no charge on is placed at a certain distance from a point charge, does it shield the electric field caused due to the point charge from reaching the other side of the sheet. As an extension of that idea, when a conducting sheet or slab is placed...
  14. V

    Equipotential surfaces for an electric dipole

    The answer is given as (a), but I think it's not correct based on the equipotential surfaces diagram given in our book for an electric dipole as below. The red dashed lines, which are supposed to be the equipotential surfaces, are surely not representing a sphere centred at the dipole center...
  15. V

    External forces required to move an electric dipole quasi-statically

    If the dipole is to be in equilibrium at all positions as it's moved so that it's always inclined at 60° to the horizontal, then the torque due to electric field needs to be balanced by torque due to external forces ##F_{ext}## as shown in above diagrams. But such external forces will not make...
  16. K

    Calculating electric charge from graph (capacitor)

    Apparently, we need to integrate the functions from 0 to the time when it is fully charged. However, I integrated in terms of t so the soultion (according to a graph programme) should be around 236 Vs but I don’t see how this could help me.
  17. yucheng

    I Electric potential and potential difference

    Electric potential = "absolute potential" Textbooks usually connect both ends of two capacitors, of different voltages, in parallel. What would happen if we only connect one end of the capacitors? Perhaps we would have to solve for Maxwell's coefficients of potential for these two cases (to...
  18. K

    A Two level system in a thermal noise electric field

    Hello! I have a 2 level system with a dipole moment d. I want to simulate numerically the evolution of the system under an external sinusoidal electric field (far off resonant). This is straightforward using SE. However I also have on top of that another electric field, created by a coupling of...
  19. O

    Understanding the energy of a dipole in a uniform electric field

    Griffith's E&M problem 4.7 asks to calculate the energy of a dipole in a uniform electric field and I ended up getting a different answer than the one given. I thought that calculating the energy/work done to construct the dipole is the same as dragging two point charges where one is d apart...
  20. Drakkith

    I Units of q in Electric Field Equation

    Quick and possibly stupid question, but in the equation for calculating the electric field: ##{\mathbf E} = \frac{1}{4πe_0}\frac{q}{r^2} \hat {\mathbf r}## What unit is ##q## in? Coulombs? Although now that I think more on it I suppose it also depends on the units you're using to calculate the...
  21. K

    A Two level system under electric field without RWA

    Hello! I have the following Hamiltonian: $$ \begin{pmatrix} 0 & -\Omega\sin(\omega t) \\ -\Omega\sin(\omega t) & \Delta \end{pmatrix} $$ where ##\Delta## is the energy splitting between the 2 levels, ##\Omega## is the Rabi frequency of the driving field and ##\omega## is the frequency of the...
  22. Z

    MIT OCW, 8.02 Electromagnetism: Potential for an Electric Dipole

    Here is a depiction of the problem a) The potential at any point P due to a charge q is given by ##\frac{kq}{r}=\frac{kq}{\lvert \vec{r}_s-\vec{r}_P \rvert}##, where ##r## is the distance from the charge to point P, which is the length of the vector difference between ##\vec{r}_s##, the...
  23. quarkyphysicsgirl

    Electric field generated by solenoid

    The formula we are given is E=(1/2r)(alpha)R^2(muo)Ioe^-(alpha)t. However, I am struggling to figure out what each of the symbols stands for in the formula...can someone help me out? Like super confused on what alpha is in this case.
  24. H

    Electric field at the center of the equilateral triangle

    I've found the distance from each point to the center, which is equal to r=20x1.732/3 = 11.55 cm. I find out that E2 and E3 due to -4µEyC on x-direction canceled each other. The E2y = E3Y = EY = E2Ycos60 = E2/2 = [(KQ2)/r^2]/2 So the net E-field: E = E1 +E2y+E3Y =kQ1/r^2 + [(KQ2)/r^2]/2 +...
  25. neroE

    Electric Field due to a disk of radius R in the xy-plane

    Hello, This question, which I found in various electricitiy and magnetism books (e.g. Introduction to electrodynamics grif.). There are many variations of this question, I am mainly interested in the following setup of it: -Suppose there is a charged disk of radius R lying in the xy-plane, and...
  26. milkism

    Magnetic- and Electric- field lines due to a moving magnetic monopole

    Question: My answer: What it looks like for an electric charge: Am I correct? If you want I can hand out my Latex on how I got to it, it will refer to the book Griffiths a lot.
  27. milkism

    Electric and magnetic fields of a moving charge

    Part a) My solution: Big R basically becomes r, and the electric and magnetic field lines are doubled because of superposition principle. Am I right?
  28. D

    A (nonconservative) electric field is induced in any region in which...

    TL;DR Summary: A (nonconservative electric field is induced in any region in which) A. there is a changing magnetic flux B. there is a changing magnetic field C. the inductive time constant is large D. the electrical resistance is small E. there is electrical current there can be more than one...
  29. jesusnd12

    Searching for information on the General Electric J31 engine

    Hi, I am currently trying to do a project related to this engine and I am trying to find information about it. I am looking for technical papers, journals or overall description of the inner workings of the engine. I am looking forward for something more in depth than wikipedia. Also...
  30. Idontknowhatimdoing

    Electric Field Inside Cylindrical Capacitor

    we know that flux is equal to the area integral of electric field dotted with dA and we can set this equal to charge enclosed divided by epsilon naught. Thus, in this case, the integral simplifies to E * A = (q_enclosed)/(ε_naught) when we choose a cylindrical gaussian surface with radius of r...
  31. C

    Electric motor problem -- Power to accelerate a toy train

    For part (b), The solution is, However, if the acceleration was not constant during the 21 ms, then would the power required be larger? I believe the average power required would be larger because if the train started off at a lower speed and then speed up very rapidly towards the end...
  32. abdulbadii

    Low Heat/Thermal Conductivity Electric Conductive Materials

    What is/are the electric conductive material(s) which has/have the least heat/thermal conductive?
  33. flamebane

    Electric Flux through a semi-spherical bowl from a charged particle

    I believe this does has a couple of Calculus aspects to it but I don't really know how I'd find the surface area of inside the bowl. The answer sheet says the answer is 252 with a margin of error of +/- 1
  34. Jake357

    Calculating Distance Travelled Using Electric Potential

    I only could calculate the distance travelled by each body, by making the difference between the initial and final electric potential work equal to the work of friction done by the 2 bodies.
  35. Jake357

    Work of the electric potential

    I tried to make the kinetic energy of the first electron equal to the electric potential work. mv^2/2=ke^2/d We have to solve for the minimum distance between them: d=2ke^2/mv^2=5.05*10^-10 m The force is: F=ke^2/d^2=9*10^-10 N, which is not correct.
  36. J

    Struggling With Part C of Electric Field Calculation

    I've figured out parts A and B but I'm struggling with Part C. I used the equation V = kQ1/r1 + kQ2/r2 where Q1 = -4.4e-12C ; k = 8.98755e9 r1 = 0.026 m Q2 = 27.4e-12 and r2 = .051-.026 My answer (8.329 V) is wrong but I have no idea why. Please help if you can.
  37. V

    Discontinuity in an Electric line of force

    This is a tricky and difficult question for me. I know from reading various textbooks that electric lines of force are always continuous without breaks, but cannot pinpoint a reason for this. The only reason I can come up is that an electric line of force must always begin and end on charges...
  38. V

    Why is electric field at the center of a charged disk not zero?

    The electric field strength at the center of a uniformly charged disk should be zero according to symmetry of concentric rings about the center, where each ring is contributing to the electric field at the center of the disk. For a thin ring of uniform charge distribution the formula is ##E =...
  39. sinus

    I Grounded Means Zero Electric Potential: Exploring the Method of Images

    Can anyone explain to me why grounded means zero electric potential. I confuse what's the relation between infinite ground conducting plane and its electric potential (the method of images). I have a several question: 1. Why the conductor plane must be infinite, while in reality there's no...
  40. C

    Calculating Electric Potential for a Non-Negligible Thickness Toroid

    For A.1 of this problem, The solution is However, I have a doubt about the linear charge density ##\lambda##. I don't understand how ##\lambda = \frac {q}{2\pi R} ## since this is not a thin ring, but has a non-negligible width of ##2a## I think that the toroid has a larger area than thin...
  41. Pushoam

    Electric field at a point close to the centre of a conducting plate

    Since the electric field due to a conducting plate is twice the electric field due to a plastic plate having same charge density, the electric field at the point P will be twice in case of conducting plate and hence it is 20 volt per metre. Is that correct?
  42. R

    How are the connectors on the DC linear actuator utilized in wiring?

    A am working on a project that uses this 12V DC linear actuator. The actuator utilizes a magnetic coil and plunger inner design (I believe this is just a solenoid). This actuator will need to use both directions of movement for the project. In terms of wiring, what do the two female connectors...
  43. C

    Graphing electric potential for two positive charges

    For part (a) of this problem, The solution is However, my solution is Am I correct? In the solutions that don't appear to plot the electric potential as units of ## \frac {k_eQ} {a} ## like I have which the problem statement said to do. Many thanks!
  44. B

    A Energy levels shifts in a time-varying electric field

    Hello! I have 2 levels of the same parity with energies ##E_1 < E_2##, and another level of opposite parity a distance ##E## from the ##E_2##. I also have that ##E_2 - E_1 << E##. I have a laser on resonance (I am trying to scan along the resonance and find it) with the transition from ##E_2##...
  45. N

    Proving SHM for charged spring mass system in electric field

    For part (f) Solution is I don't understand why the bit highlighted in yellow is true. Would anybody be kind enough to help.
  46. C

    Electric field at surface of lead-208 nucleus

    For this problem, The solution is, However why is ## r = (208)^{1/3}(1.20 \times 10^{-15} m)## Many thanks!
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