Talk:Electricity/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Good article review (January 2008)

The following is a summary of my review of this article for good article status, separated into the same sections that the criteria are presented in. At this point in time, I am unable to pass it due to some minor problems I have with the references. I have instead put the review on hold, which allows for up to 7 days for these issues to be addressed. Once this has happened the review will be updated without the need for relisting the article and thus restarting the entire process.

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose quality:

   Clearly written and well explained.

   B. MoS compliance:

   Looks fine to me.

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. References to sources:

   References consistently presented in a separate section at the bottom of the article.

   B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:

   In the history section the discovery of bioelectricity is dated as 1783. However the reference dates the experiment as occurring in 1771 and the theory being advanced in 1786 (as a side note, the IEEE Virtual Museum used two references prior dates it as being in the 1780s). I'm not sure which of the two referenced dates should be listed in the article.
   
   The inline citations drop off in the last paragraph of the "Electric current" section. It would be good to see a couple there, especially for the comments about AC. Similarly, I would like to see a reference for The electric field acts between two charges in a similar manner to the way that the gravitational field acts between two masses, and like it, is infinite in extent and shows an inverse square relationship with distance (unless of course the Hawking reference at the end of the paragraph covers this, which I am unsure of given the title). Note that, as an electrical engineer, I am not disputing the statements, just saying that it would be nice to have some references.
   
   A similar issue occurs with the final paragraph in the "Electrical phenomena in nature" section (about the response to / generation of electric fields in animals).

   C. No original research:

   None that I can hunt down.

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   Covers the major aspects nicely with links to relevant articles for further information.

   B. Focused:

   Focuses on the major areas with 'main article' links to the full article.

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

   Not entirely sure how one would introduce bias into an article like this... any ideas?

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

   Can't find any evidence of edit wars in the recent history (checked the last ~3 months).

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

lightning is made of the positive from the ground the negative from the bottom of the cloud and positive at the top —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.59.110.18 (talk) 22:53, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

1. A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:

   All images are from Commons (i.e. no non-free images).

   B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:

   Nicely illustrated without stretching the point; all captions suitable.

2. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

   An excellent improvement - thanks largely to BillC (talk · contribs) - on the version previously nominated for GA status. The issues mentioned above are fairly minor and should be straightforward to address in the hold period.

I am more than willing to respond to any queries or comments that may arise from this review. However, I would ask that they are kept here so that all who are involved with the article can readily see them.

Blair - Speak to me 11:37, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

thank you for your review. I have added 15 more references since then. Where written material was not adequately supported by existing references, I have revised it or replaced them. In the case of Galvani, he conducted a series of experiments throughout the 1780s, and for which sources give various dates for various milestones, finally writing them up in 1791. The date of 1771 previously given in the web reference was probably a typo; since this casts a pall over it, I removed it altogether from the list of references. I have added a couple of footnotes to the citations to note where disagreement exists, such as under what circumstances Øersted discovered the deflecting compass needle, though this doesn't materially affect the validity of the reference. — BillC ^talk 23:08, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for clearing that up and adding the extra references. I now have no problems passing this as a good article. And once again, extremely good work on the improvements you have made to this article over the last couple of months. Feel free to use one of the templates from Category:Wikipedia Good Article contributors on your user page as a mark of your efforts. Blair - Speak to me 06:18, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

in regards to the name Electricity

In regards to the name Electricity the article states "Electricity (from New Latin ēlectricus, "amber-like")" can someone please verify this is the case as I remember being taught that the name electricity derived from the ancient Greek name for amber "elektron", on which the first effects of electricity were observed. I don't remember which Greek writer mentioned that by rubbing a piece of amber in wool would make it attract smaller bodies like dust etc. It seems logical that the name would be derived from the original source and not the later Latin. Radaemon (talk) 15:52, 15 February 2008 (UTC)radaemon

The Greek word for amber is indeed elektron, and the Greek who first described amber's ability to attract motes of dust when rubbed with wool was Thales in around 600BC. However, there was no term for the phenomenon until Gilbert, writing (in Latin) in 1600AD, employed the term electricus, meaning "amber-like". The English term electricity was derived from Gilbert's neologism by Sir Thomas Browne in 1646. Elektron clearly begat electricus, but the latter is the first use of the term to describe the phenomenon, not the former. — BillC ^talk 17:56, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

conventional flow notation and electron flow notation

A little something about Benjamin Franklin: he's the one who made what turned out to be an erroneous assumption about the direction of current flow, or properly the electron flow (shown in the simple circuit later in the article): from positive to negative. William Crookes (1832-1919) proved this wrong. This guy is responsible for the discovery and proof of the true electron flow (- to +) rather than the conventional flow (+ to -) assumed by Benjamin Franklin. source: http://www.3rd1000.com/history/electrons.htm search on "William Crookes". He's also wikified here.

However, by that time of the discovery, the "conventional flow notation" (as is the proper name for it- from pos to neg) had already been established and continues to this day. That makes the circuit diagram in this article "politically correct," but technically incorrect. Something should be said about the correct "electron flow notation" (again, as is the proper name for this- neg to pos) in this article. But it should also be maintained that the conventional flow notation is the mainstay of all circuit designs, even by engineers today. Mdoc7 (talk) 03:37, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

No, the above is wrong, and appears to be a common misconception. The above explanation suffers from the mistaken idea that all electric currents are flows of negative charge. In fact, electron-flow applies only to metals and to vacuum tubes. Franklin might have been wrong about metal wires, but it's just as wrong to assume that electron flows are the only type of electric current possible. Here's a counterexample: electric currents in human flesh are composed entirely of flows of positive and negative ions. Electric currents are flows of any electric charge, including negative/positive ions, electrons, protons, positrons, charged dust particles and water droplets, etc.

In modern terms we could say that Franklin was wrong in assuming that electric currents were flows of just one type of charge carrier. But if we wanted to simplify the physics by pretending that only one polarity of charge can move, then the labeling of "positive" charge is truly arbitrary. And no matter which polarity you pick, somebody will complain that it's "wrong!" --128.95.172.173 (talk) 20:16, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

"...the valence shell of an atom represents a band of energy levels and the valence electrons are confined to that band. If an electron aquires enough additional energy from an external source, it leaves the valence shell and becomes a free electron and exists in what is known as the conduction band.

"The difference in energy between the valence band and the conduction band is called the energy gap. This is the amount of energy that a valence electron must have in order to jmp from the valence band to the conduction band. once in the conduction band, the electron is free to move throughout the material and is not tied to an given atom."

"When a voltage is applied across a piece of intrinsic silicon... the thermally generated free electrons in the conduction band, which are free to move randomly in the crystal structure, are now easily attracted toward the positive end. This movement of free electrons is one type of current in a semiconductor material and is called electron current

"Another type of current occurs at the valence level, where the holes created by the free electrons exist. Electrons remaining in the valence band are still attached to their atoms and are not free to move randomly in the crstal structure as are the free electrons. However, a valence electron can move into a nearby hole, with little changein it's energy level, thus leaving another hole where it came from. Effectively the hole has moved from one place to another in the crystaline structure. This is called hole current."

source: Electronic Devices: Electron-flow version Thomas L. Floyd 2nd edition ISBN 0-13-363599-6

to my understanding technicians are trained in electron flow and engineers are trained in conventional current. As this discussion illustrates, there appears to be a difference of opinion over whether electron flow (negative to positive) or conventional current (positive to negative- or hole-flow to continue the terminology in the above quote) is what should be considered the "correct" direction of current flow.

I have been taught from the Floyd text above. The explaination given in the quote above gives no preference to which is the "correct" direction or polarity of current. It provides an objective explaination.

An objective explaination is not what appears in the article. The direction of flow section appears biased toward conventional current. The judgement

"If another definition is used-for example,"electron current"-it needs to be explicitly stated."

exists without citation to source as if the article writer is authorized to determine the correct usage. This may be the terminology used in the text cited earlier, but it isn't clear. The terminology usage is likely intended to clarify terminology in the textbook cited in the article (citation number 24) and in my opinion should not be used as an order of usage for the Wiki article. The Wiki article does include the language

"Current can consist of any moving charged particles; most commonly these are electrons, but any charge in motion constitutes a current."

This is acceptable as it objectively states physical fact. It states that electron flow is common, but allows for the existance of the flow of other polarities.

I recommend (if it's allowed in Wiki rules) quoting the Floyd source as I have above as a lay-term explaination of the difference between positive flow and negative flow current. I also recommend consideration of removing the suggestion on correct terminology usage ("If another definition is used—for example, "electron current"—it needs to be explicitly stated."). I would be happy to merely have an accurate description of both electron flow and hole flow even if it doesn't contain the Floyd quotation.

I am not advocating electron-flow as the true flow of current (even though I am of the opinion that electron-flow describes the physical process). I merely wish this section to appear unbiased per the Wiki practices. DarthAlbin (talk) 02:13, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

The flow of positive ions should not be neglected; important fields depend on ions, such as batteries and electroplating. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 02:56, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not saying anything should be neglected. I'm suggesting that a complete, encyclopedic explaination should be given. The section as it exists is confusing, incomplete, and unclear. The flow of positive ions should be mentioned and discussed. If free floating electrons carry current in a conductive material, further explaination SHOULD be given to explain both negative and positive flow so that anyone, not just electrical engineers, can get an unbiased explaination of current flow in all of it's forms. This discussion illustrates that a controversy exists in the terminology. this controversy should be mentioned in the article. DarthAlbin (talk) 13:22, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

It's one thing to say the current version is confusing to people who are not electrical engineers; that may be so. It is quite another thing to say there is a controversy over terminology. SI incorporates electrical units, and is the law almost everywhere in the world (including the United States) so far as electricity is concerned. Anyone who thinks the current flow convention needs to be changed must complain to their congressman, member of parliament, or the like; this is not the place to argue about it. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 16:24, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

the discussion is regarding the section in this article in Wiki. SI isn't cited. Nor is there clarification for non electrical proffesionals. This needs to be clearer to the general public. Let's be aware of our readers when we write.DarthAlbin (talk) 16:43, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Exactally, current always flows from higher to low potential because thats what we defined it as. Weither it be electrons moving in the opposite direction, or protons moving in the same direction, it makes no difference. There isn't an engineer or technician on earth whom if you told the current goes from A to B would think that A is a lower potential with respect to B. Unfortuently we named 'electrons' with the word 'elect' in them, so people think they are electricity and that 'current goes the wrong way'. We should have named them negitrons or something opposite of a proton.--155.144.40.31 (talk) 06:12, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Safety

Do we need something on safety and the fact that electricity can kill? In fact Electrical safety redirects to Electricity but there is nothing about it. 118.208.184.222 (talk) 10:26, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

It sounds like a good candidate for a new article. Perhaps you'd like to create it? You'll need to register an account to start an article, though. Regards, — BillC ^talk 11:51, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

V is not equal to IR

Facts:

1) In chemisty the number of electrons leaving a mass is determined by the voltage Source: chemistry textbook 2) In induction physics, the current is determined by the number of coils in the winding source: physics textbooks 3) In circiut theory the current is determined by the load Source: also physics textbook 4) these three things are all different 5) In the power industry, there is also something called "current draw" which is a current not determined by the load but the power supply Source: Con Edison training manual 6) All of these things with the exception of 5 are excepted theories of science that contflict with the electricity theory 7) The units for charge are wrong. The 4pi that is in F = q1*q2/(4pir^2). the 4 pi is found experimentaly but is from the units for charge.

I find that most circuits textbooks don't even talk at all about any scientist. Many of whom pointed out alot of these things What I demand:

1) A scientific presentation of electricity theory that uses the scientific method 2) A list of people in the scientific community who actually accepted this (and hold electrons to be a fact and more than a theory), and on what basis of the scientific method did they accept it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lostkey (talk • contribs) 01:41, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

The theoretical and experimental evidence for electrons is overwhelming - if you object to textbooks as sources, look at the abundance of peer-reviewed journal articles. Of course, the concept has been refined considerably from that of a tiny charged particle, but you won't find any credible scientist who rejects the idea outright. There are lots of improvements that could be made to this article, but we don't give undue weight to minority views, I'm afraid. Papa November (talk) 10:54, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Perception

I'm not doubting the source quoted for the claim that a milliamp of DC current is readily detectable by touch as an electric shock, but the threshold of perception (rather than shock) for AC in the fingertips is far below this level (of the order of 10 microamps from my research many years ago). I'm not proposing that my original research be recorded in the article, but someone must have published figures on threshold of perception. Does anyone know of any paper on this? Dbfirs 08:47, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

(later ...) Reading a little further in the cited source, it does say that 0.1 mA can be detected through a smaller skin area, so I have amended the article in line with this published research. Can anyone find a source for my claim to be able to detect 0.01 mA in my fingertips? Dbfirs 09:08, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

(& later ...) Having read more of the cited source, I realise that what I was detecting was an electrovibration effect. It is detected by sliding a dry fingertip across metal at mains voltage (AC only), and is caused by an electrostatic modulation of the frictional force being perceived as a vibration at twice the supply frequency. Should we have a paragraph on this? Dbfirs 10:06, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

That does seem rather specialized for what is a very general article. There are quite a few topics which receive no coverage (electronics, for example) that we would want to cover before that. Maybe a more specialized article is a better location for that topic. — BillC ^talk 12:09, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, point taken. I agree this article is not the place for details, but I don't know enough about the topic to start a new article. (I suppose I'd better do some research!) Dbfirs 12:26, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Efficiency

While the article states that it is important to transfer electricity across the country with efficiency, it fails to mention line losses that are caused by transmission over distances. For example, the state of Vermont loses 10% of its power that it buys from nearby New England. Worse if it is further. This means that it must order 10% more power than it needs and results in a 10% higher base for the quantity so transmitted, for their customers. These losses over distance must be pretty well known. Shouldn't a formula or table be presented or pointed to from here? Thanks. Student7 (talk) 00:52, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

I think that kind of information is too specialized for this article. It belongs in an article like Electric power transmission. --Jc3s5h (talk) 01:27, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

The article didn't really mention what a transformer did, but it has a lot of other stuff more specialized. So I've added a line about how voltage is raised and current (which causes more of the losses) is lowered by the transformer, and THAT is what allows the efficiency which makes centralized power generation economical. The article sort of had the cart before the horse; economies of scale help, but only if you can transmit the power without losing it. DC transmission lines are used more and more these days, but even they require transformers ultimately to get the voltage up and down (with recification and inversion steps also). The key is to keep the currents as low as possible, and I think the article can at least mention that. SBHarris 08:59, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

What people mean by "electricity"

This is usually not static electricity but the stuff that you get from a wall socket. This article needs to talk about all of it, but I'm not happy about the fact that somebody coming here for an explanation of what "wall socket electricity" is, not only won't find it in the LEAD, but will have to tease it out from way down the article. There is a section on AC and DC currents, but it's a ways from commercial power generation. So I've taken the liberty of adding a paragraph in that section to address the problem. Commercial electricity is access to the push/pull of an electric field, basically. It's not really a flow of electrons so much, as the electrons just sit and wiggle tiny fractions of a millimeter back and forth. So you don't rent electrons from the power company-- the electrons just sit and vibrate. What you pay for is access to the potential and field, and they carry commercial "electrical power" (and in a sense all other kinds of electrical power as well). The motion of charges is necessary (and all these things-- charge, field, potential-- are all tied together), but it's sometimes more useful to see the potential and field as the primary "thing" and the motion of charges as the secondary "thing." I know that a lot of people have the picture of electrons zipping around a circuit in lightbulbs and toasters, and that's always wrong, so something needs to be done to correct that, and I've put in a pit to do it. I couldn't figure out any place to really fit this into the lead, however. SBHarris 08:52, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

How is commercial electricity different to non-commercial electricity? Electron drift velocity and the fact that the charge carriers in alternating current are both already discussed in the article. There's quite a bit of repetition in what you wrote, for example: "Access to the electrical field (and the voltage potential) allows work to be done by the electric field, whenever the circuit is closed and charge is allowed to flow in the direction field directs." —BillC ^talk 20:04, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

By commercial electricity I mean what comes from the commericial power grid. That's what people usually mean when they say "electricity", although of course the term is used for static electricity, the electricity running though your flashlight, etc, etc. I don't mind you deleting what I wrote, but please replace it with something that addresses the basic problem I mention above, which is that people who want to know what "electricity" is (meaning what their electric bill pays for) will GO to THIS article and have a very difficult time finding out the answer! Okay, you didn't like where I placed the answer, and thought it should go up nearer the front of the article. I agree with you on that. Would you then please put something there yourself, then? It's easy to delete; it's hard to write. Thanks. SBHarris 07:23, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

The lead section explains that 'electricity' is a blanket term for a variety of phenomena. What one's electricity bill pays for is not access to a field or a voltage, but the supply of electrical energy. In a 19-year career in the electricity supply industry, I have never heard access to electricity being described as access to an electric field. I think you mean the article needs a section on household electrical supply? I will see what I can produce. Regards, —BillC ^talk 22:23, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it needs a section on household electrical supply, also called electricity. And though you may pay for "electrical energy", this is no more a "thing" than kinetic energy or chemical energy. How do you GET this energy "electrically"? Answer: you pay for access to a electical field which doesn't disappear when you draw a significant current from the conductors between which it appears (unlike the field that produces a static spark). SBHarris 01:56, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Electricity COnduction

To show comparitive study for electricity conduction by Copper, Aluminium and Iron which experiment will be the best example? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.8.220.10 (talk) 12:50, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by this. The Reference Desk is the best place to ask such questions, though you might want to reword it a little. Regards, —BillC ^talk 22:25, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

E signal

So does an electric signal travel at the speed of light of just close to the speed of light? Both are stated in the article.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:39, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Electric signals travel at the speed of propagation of electromagnetic signals in the medium, and at the frequency, of the signal. This is usually a bit less than the speed of light in a vacuum, and is never greater than speed of light in a vacuum. --Jc3s5h (talk) 17:02, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

What is meant by electrical "signal"? The article is talking in one spot about a current in a wire, the later mention appears to be about an electromagnetic wave. 'Appears' as it is worded quite vaguely. They are related phenomena, but NOT the same thing. The speed of RF especially can be greatly affected by the medium it travels in.--220.101.28.25 (talk) 17:39, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

A signal is a change in some aspect of an electric current or voltage that carries information. As for electromagnetic waves and an electric current not being the same thing, that's true, but you can't change the current without creating an electromagnetic wave (though the wave may be so weak that it can't be detected in practice). --Jc3s5h (talk) 18:16, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

mayan indians were electroplating gold onto copper statues when cortez and landau landed in the americas

the copper statues appearing to be gold, but when they were brought back to europe and and tried to make coinage, they wondered how the heathens had hammered the gold onto the copper. The mayans were also using the worlds first binary computers, rows of knotted ropes, turning all the knots on one row turned the next row by one knot, Bishop Landau and King Cortez decided everything the mayans were doing was evil so they burned all the books, computers, excapt the one which is in the vatican archieves, and executed the mayan scientists. So much for your pseudo-history of electricity and computers..... whatever, truth will surpass you illfounded about the history of electricity and computers02:28, 20 September 2009 (UTC)~scientific american

electricity referred to as enegy

At best electricity is a secondary source of energy since electricity has to be derived from a primary source of energy such as oil, coal, natural gas, or nuclear. Of course if mankind could control lightning then electricity could possibly be a primary source of energy. Maybe there is research in the arena of controlling lightning.

With our propagation of electricity being an energy source we are in a sense 'shooting ourself in the foot' since as electricity becomes more widely used in vehicles mankind will inadvertently use more fuel due to the inefficiency of deriving the electricity from a primary energy source. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ford19Wiki57 (talk • contribs) 04:56, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Error in reference to the novel "Frankenstein"

Hi, I was reading the electricity in culture section, and I noticed that it said that Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" started the trend of mad scientists using electricity to bring things to life. I recently read the novel, and it never states the method used to bring the monster to life. If somebody could fix this, I'd greatly appreciate it. Messenger of Fire (talk) 01:39, 14 November 2009 (UTC)Messenger of Fire, 11/13/09

Actually, in the novel, though the exact details of the monster's construction are left ambiguous, it is stated Frankenstein developed an interest in galvanism in college, implying this was the method used. Intelligentsium 03:43, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Furthermore, the quote from the article in no way states electricity was used.

“ [A]lthough she [Shelley] does not name the method of revitalization of [Frankenstein's] monster, [t]he revitalization of monsters with electricity later became a stock theme in horror films ”

Intelligentsium 03:47, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

That's because I just changed the text to reflect the ambiguity and address the correct concern above. SBHarris 03:59, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Protection

Please advise the reason for the protection of this article? On a quick read of the start it looks pretty good. Has it been vandalised or are unqualified people putting rubbish in.

Some of the other electrical related articles are obviously re-written by people with NO IDEA of what they are talking abour, or pushing an agenda ie Wireless Power Transmission.--203.63.130.37 (talk) 03:51, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Speed

Hi! At what speed electric signals propagate? Is the a detailed description anywhere? Especially interesting the case of different networking technologies compared to optic cables.--Dojarca (talk) 16:12, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Electrical signals travel at the speed of electromagnetic radiation, which roughly speaking is the speed of light (299,792,458 m/s). However, except in a vacuum, the speed depends on the frequency of the signal and the medium.One medium, coaxial cable has a propagation between 0.66 and 0.84 of the speed in a vacuum, depending on the specific type of cable. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:29, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Is not the speed of electric signals just the speed of sound in the electronic gas?--Dojarca (talk) 17:15, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

I've never heard of "the speed of sound in the electronic gas". However, the speed of electric signals is NOT the speed of the average movement of the charged electrons. A rough analogy would be a dozen billiard balls in a line, touching. The cue stick is struck against one end of the line, and the time between the impact of the cue stick and the first movement of the ball at the other end of the line is timed. The speed of the impulse will be much greater than the average speed of the balls. Jc3s5h (talk) 17:24, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Please tell me when I said speed of electricity is the speed of charged electrions. Please stop putting bullshit in my mouth. You said that the speed of electricity is the speed of propagation of elecrtro-magnetic waves in the medium. This is very strange assertion considering that speed of sound can never approach anything near the speed of light (and electric signals are essentially sound in evectronic gas).--Dojarca (talk) 05:34, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

"electric signals are essentially sound in evectronic gas" is utter nonsense. Forget you ever heard such garbage and start over. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:56, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

forget you ever read the garbage that Jc3s5h writes, electric sound in electronic gas is a beautiful metaphor. however, like the Bible, you will need to mention that it is a metaphor, otherwise dolts will take it literally and cause a lot of trouble. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.6.216.249 (talk) 22:58, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

I think the speed is stated in the article: "the electric field that drives them itself propagates at close to the speed of light". What would be interesting for me would be the explanation of this driving phenomena, which seems to be missing completely at the moment. Is there formula for calculating this propagation speed? The driving phenomena sounds for me like some type of "pushing around movement". Or are the electromagnetic waves somehow involved?--Yebbey (talk) 09:22, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Greek meanings

Hello everybody, could anybody please suggest me a website or portal where I would be able to find the Greek meanings of all the elctricity related terms? Thanking You, Jayesh Gajre, Nagpur. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.124.251.67 (talk) 15:12, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

the word for electricity seems to be from Greek, not Latin

From http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Electron#History

The ancient Greeks noticed that amber attracted small objects when rubbed with fur; apart from lightning, this phenomenon was humanity's earliest recorded experience with electricity.[13] In his 1600 treatise De Magnete, the English physician William Gilbert coined the New Latin term electricus, to refer to this property of attracting small objects after being rubbed.[14] Both electric and electricity are derived from the Latin ēlectrum (also the root of the alloy of the same name), which came from the Greek word ήλεκτρον (ēlektron) for amber.

I believe that the origin of the word "Electricity" should be corrected (New-Latin --> Greek) on this page as well.

thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.230.4.198 (talk) 16:35, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Galvani

the authorship of the article is presumably american, as americans figure more prominently than europeans. what about Galvani? 61.6.216.249 (talk) 22:53, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

electricity

why electricity is a versatile form of energy? give a characteristic of electricity —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.212.115.129 (talk) 12:32, 18 June 2010 (UTC) Perhaps because it could be used for various purposes. Heating, mobility and a lot of connectivity boom —Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.28.35.71 (talk) 07:12, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from 131.111.184.92, 9 November 2010

{{edit semi-protected}} Amber is described as an alloy of gold and silver; this is incorrect. See the wikipedia page on amber.

131.111.184.92 (talk) 19:58, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Thank you not sure why that was there to begin with The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 20:42, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

mayan indians were electroplating gold onto copper statues when cortez and landau landed in the americas

the copper statues appearing to be gold, but when they were brought back to europe and and tried to make coinage, they wondered how the heathens had hammered the gold onto the copper. The mayans were also using the worlds first binary computers, rows of knotted ropes, turning all the knots on one row turned the next row by one knot, Bishop Landau and King Cortez decided everything the mayans were doing was evil so they burned all the books, computers, excapt the one which is in the vatican archieves, and executed the mayan scientists. So much for your pseudo-history of electricity and computers

Forgive me, but an unsigned, sourceless comment that doesnt recognize the Abacus (2,700 BC) and that starts from a position of extreme hostility carries very little weight. If you had a point, you just made it less likely to be taken seriously. 74.132.249.206 (talk) 05:26, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Electric power is the most common meaning of "electricity" in English

It seems silly that somebody looking up electricity, wanting to know about the "stuff" that flows in their house wiring, will not find it as the most common meaning of the word in this article (even though far more arcane meanings are mentioned). This meaning, as in "wired for electricity" should be first in the LEDE, but I compromised. The second change was that the etymology stuff, with all the Greek and Latin, was screwing up the first sentence. If it goes in the lede at all, it should be farther down where it doesn't clutter things as much. Where we got the word is less important than what it is. See WP:NOTDICTIONARY. I'm willing to let it stay, but not in the first sentence of a LEDE. SBHarris 22:44, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I'm not clear what you're trying to say here. Could you please clarify (with reference to specific earlier versions of the article demonstrating the problem, if you feel this would be useful).

You reverted my dab line, so that as the article currently stands, there is a dab for the "electric" redirect, but not one for Electricity (disambiguation) itself. However, these are two different pages meaning that to get to other uses of "Electricity" (e.g. the OMD song I was looking up) I had to go via the "electric" dab (which had the link in a less-prominent position in the "see also" section).

Personally, I certainly *wasn't* suggesting that the "other" meanings should take precedence, only that other uses should be noted via a very brief link to the dab page, as happens in almost every other case with a primary meaning. Ubcule (talk) 19:38, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Actually "Electrical energy" is the most common meaning of "electricity" in English

"Electricity is a form of energy." Most grade-school curriculum material makes this assertion. So do articles aimed at the general public. They also state that electric companies "sell electricity." They say that quantities of electricity are measured in units of KWh or other energy unit. The WP entry has no section about electrical energy.

Some authors don't know the difference between power and energy. Rather than correctly stating that Energy companies sell energy, they say that these companies sell something called "electric power." This is flat out wrong, since power is a rate. Power is not energy. Power is the flow rate of energy, the rate of energy transfer.

For those who are confused, the issues of power versus energy are easier to understand in metric units: quantities of electric energy are measured in joules, electric companies sell joules of electricity, and when joules are flowing along the wires, the rate of flow is measured in joules per second. The word Watt means exactly the same as "Joule per second." Electric companies don't sell power, they sell energy. In fact, in the last few decades I've watched the literature stop referring to "Electric power companies" and instead correct their descriptions to read "Electric energy companies."

Of course this brings up the contradictory, unscientific, "illegal" definition of electricity, since scientists define the quantity of electricity as being charge, and measured in coulombs. That's the NIST definition in SI units. Unless something has recently changed, the scientific community says that electricity is not a form of energy. (Perhaps this is why the WP entry has no "electrical energy" section? Though it does offhandedly mention that electricity IS a form of energy.) 128.95.172.173 (talk) 01:21, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Don't hold your breath waiting for all electric power companies to change to calling themselves electric energy companies. We all know that in physics power is energy/time, but (unfortunately) in common English this is not always the case, and quite often "power" is used when "energy" is meant. For example, we refer to a powerful bomb, when we're almost never talking about the power it produces in the physics sense, but rather the energy. (Don't hold your breath waiting for us to talk of energyful bombs). And likewise, we still have an electrical power industry not an electrical energy industry (also not the most common term), and what that industry sells you may be electrical energy in the physics sense but it is still electrical power in the common language sense (which need not be the strictly scientific one). And that is ultimately why there is no Wikipedia article on "electrical energy" (rather, it redirects to electrical potential energy). The "power company" sells you energy by giving you access to an electric field and potential, and you draw energy from it. BUT this energy is electrical potential energy until you turn it into some other kind of energy, such as light or heat or the kinetic energy of motion. At which point it is no longer electrical potential energy, which is why our only article on electrical energy leaves "potential" in the term. All electrical energy is potential energy, since as soon as it's no longer potential, it's also no longer electrical. SBHarris 02:15, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

emcompasses

should be encompasses. Muki987 (talk) 16:32, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Electric Motors

Electric Motors external references via Wikipedia

216.191.228.218 (talk) 17:48, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from WilliamStott, 22 July 2011

Hey, Wikipedia experts! The "electricity" entry has this:

In June 1752 he is reputed to have attached a metal key to the bottom of a dampened kite string and flown the kite in a storm-threatened sky.[11] A succession of sparks jumping from the key to the back of the hand showed that lightning was indeed electrical in nature.[12]

What "hand"? No hand is mentioned earlier. Presumably, the word "kite" should be used in place of "hand."

WilliamStott (talk) 15:57, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

It should read "his hand". I've changed it. —BillC ^talk 17:15, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Merging of unnecessarily split content about electricity from other separate articles

Some topics related to electricity are just subtopics of electricity and actually are pure parts of this topic of electricity and should be merged into this article, unnecessary distribution of information about electricity confuses and annoys a user searching for just a specific part of content about the main topic and should be stopped and merged back instead of being split. These topics are electricity generation and transmission. Such information is expected by the viewer to be on the same page as a subtopic of electricity. If any common information is not found on the obvious page a person starts feeling startled and annoyed of Wikipedia.

We do not merge long articles on WP, just because we can. Can you imagine what an article like United States of America would look like, if we did? Please read WP:SS. Many subtopics of articles must be spun off leaving behind a short synopsis, just so save space. Electrical generation and transmission are giant topics which deserve their own maximal-length articles, and have them. They need only a summary and a

Main article: electrical power generation

tag, and so on. SBHarris 20:43, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Punctuation

I am a new user for the main wikipedia, but I am a fairly old user (going by the username 'ChaseM') of two wikia (Supernatural and Elderscrolls), and I would like permission to correct punctuation on this page.Warp Dragon (talk) 02:06, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

You don't need permission; anyone can edit. You might want to look a the Wikipedia "Manual of Style" to see if anything applies to the changes you are thinking of. Also, since electricity tends to involve more units of measure than the average article, you might need to look at the "Manual of Style/Dates and numbers". Thanks for trying to improve the encyclopedia. Jc3s5h (talk) 12:47, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

History

The first issue of the Encyclopaedia Britannica had and interesting description of Electricity which may be good to add to the History section. The following is an extract from the Encyclopaedia Britannica: THE word ELECTRICITY signifies, in general, the effects of a very subtile fluid matter, different in its properties from every other fluid we are acquainted with. This fluid is capable of uniting with almost every body, but unites more readily with some particular bodies than with others: its motion is amazingly quick, is regulated by peculiar laws, and produces a vast variety of singular phenomena, the principal of which shall be enumerated in this article. [[]] Kobus Burger (talk) 17:17, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Scope of generation of electrical power

I have objection to the image of wind generators being cited as "increasing importance to many countries" in this particular article. This is political, and wind power remains of little significance compared to conventional sources. An image of a simple generator (outside its driving force) would be more appropriate, for all forms of energy generation are dependent on that. I do not have privilege to change the article, so would ask a power-user to do so. --96.244.241.243 (talk) 01:39, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Power-user turbines ON. Okay, changed. If you want to pick out a username for yourself (you don't even need email so long as you don't forget your password), make 10 good edits, and wait four days, then you too can tap the massive potential to change Wikipedia. For the good of mankind and the planet. And your ego. SBHarris 02:39, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Scope of the article

OK, I don't think that the topic of this article includes all of electromagnetism. If it did we would have to merge it with electromagnetism.

I also don't think that it includes most production of visible light, the movement of an electron in an orbital is not electricity in the sense that it is normaly considered electricity. I think we're only interested in electron flow in conductors, plasmas, superconductors, and semiconductors, not electron orbitals within a single atom.

Nor, do I think the propagation of radio waves/light in free space itself part of this topic, although electricity can obviously launch and catch radio waves in transmitters and receivers.

Also, I don't think that electricity is just "electricity", a random word in the English language. I'm pretty certain that the concept of electricity is international, and not just an accident of English.

Does anyone violently disagree with any of that?Planetscared (talk) 04:13, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, the problem is that the word "electricity" is like "matter"-- it's not really a scientific word, but a prescientific word. I'm all for cutting it down to "Commerical applications of electromagnetism" or something, but I'm still not all that sure of which ones we'd choose. Some time ago I had to fight to get the most common use of the word electricity (as in "is your house wired for electricity?") into the lead. Do we really only want to refer to electrical energy per time that is provided commercially, by the electrical power industry by means of a connection through a conductor to an electric power station? Will electronics be part of "electricity"? The charge that runs into and out of my house, as A.C., is only a few amp-sec (coulombs), roughly the same as in a flashlight. The wiring has to be big only because the flow in both directions is counted, but the charge into and out of the house is zero over 1/60th sec -- mostly the electrons just sit and jiggle. I rent access to a potential and I buy energy -- the power company actually couldn't care less about how many electrons are used to deliver this energy (and in fact it's not that many, as noted), so long as I don't start a fire. So what is the subject of this article? Commercial electrical power? Again, perhaps we should just delete it and re-direct. SBHarris 04:52, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

To my view, electricity is certainly a scientific word, it's just that the theory isn't the current/main one, it's been subsumed. I mean were "epicycles" scientific? I would say they certainly were, and are, they made and can still make quite accurate predictions, it's just that they're not a complete or the best description. But the article on epicycles should still logically cover all about epicycles; and this article should logically cover all forms of electricity. (By cover I don't mean it should all be here, but it should all be summarised here, and link out to more complete descriptions on particular parts where appropriate, like static electricity for example.)Planetscared (talk) 17:25, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Basically, just because it's old science, that doesn't mean that it's not scientific, this isn't pseudoscience at all!Planetscared (talk) 17:25, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

The word you're looking for is "obsolete". Electricity has a clear scientific definition which is no longer used in science: "electricity" is narrowly defined to mean Electric Charge, and a flow of electricity is called Electric Current. Under this obsolete usage, the Quantity of Electricity is not measured in volts, amperes, watts, or joules; it's measured only in coulombs. Today the NIST and the SI definition of units still includes Quantity of Electricity: coulombs, and it appears in the CRC handbook of Physics, but has been removed from the latest editions. In other words, if we wanted to use the scientific definition in the Wikipedia, this whole Wikipedia entry on electricity is almost completely wrong, since Electricity, (a quantity of electric charge,) is not a general class of electrical phenomena, nor is it a form of energy sold by utility companies. (For every instance of the word "electricity" throughout WP, we'd test-fit the term "Electric Charge" instead, to assure correctness! <grin!>) But fortunately this scientific usage is obsolete, and "electricity" hasn't been a scientific term in many decades. Hence we can (unscientifically and with blatant contradictions) say the following: amperes of electricity, or joules of electricity, or coulombs of electricity, or watts of electricity, or volts of electricity. Flashlights are electricity, but transistors are not (they're electronics!). Yes, electricity is a form of energy, but also it's most assuredly NOT a form of energy, while also electricity is an entire class of phenomenon. A class of phenomena cannot be stored in Leyden jars, but electric charge can, so electricity can AND cannot be stored. This because the word "electricity" has no physics definition, and it lacks any single popular usage which is free of contradictions. 208.38.200.43 (talk) 23:33, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Requesting for measuring

In this article can anyone please insert a table showing measurement of electricity as it is in light. — Preceding unsigned comment added by LMANSH (talk • contribs) 05:23, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

what is electricity

Can the article say, "No one knows what electricity is." ? Because we don't. But we can posture. 71.22.155.114 (talk) 04:53, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

In very simple language "Electricity is flow of Electrons flowing through the conductive material in closed full circuit. It is combination of Electrons flow (Current), Force of electrons in the field(Ampere), direction of flow and power(Positive/negative). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Viralhgp (talk • contribs) 09:37, 4 April 2013‎ (UTC)

Scope of generation of electrical power

This article refers to "busses" which are kisses. You mean "buses."67.86.9.51 (talk) 02:00, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Fixed. Hope you got at least one electric buss for New Year's. SBHarris 06:14, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

A "bus" is a very heavy electrical conductor, usually made of copper that is used in electric power plants to conduct large amounts of current from the generators to the step-up electrical transformers. The plural of thsi word is "buses". A "buss" is a kiss, and its plural is "busses".

Conflicting information

This article states in it's section of history that: Michael Faraday invented the electric motor in 1821....... -__- There is an electrical trade textbook that states on page 2.2 at the very top inside the box titled "Early Electric Motors" , and it states: "The first U.S. patent for a motor was issued to Thomas Davenport in 1837. He reported that he used silk from his wife's wedding gown as insulation for the conductors, but despite this sacrifice, his motor was not commercially successful. Practical electric motors, like the practical light bulb, did not appear until the late 19th century." Anonymous until I figure out these "non-forums" ArminHamer (talk) 17:34, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Just because something received its first American patent, or its first patent in any other country, does not make it the FIRST. The inventor of the very first one might not have patented the invention anywhere at all. Also, given the condition of telecommunications in the 1850's, something could have been invented in Austria, Russia, Japan, Holland, etc., yet the U.S. Patent Office had never heard of it.

Furthermore, I disagree with you about the first practical electric motors having been invented until the late 19th Century, which I take as the 1890s. Practical electric motors existed in the 1870s, if not earlier. Also, there is the question of the size of the electric motor. Naturally, practical electric motors capable of putting out a fraction of a horsepower - especially using direct current - came decades before Nikola Tesla invented his big three-phase induction motors that were capable of an output of hundreds of horsepower of mecanical power.98.81.0.161 (talk) 15:21, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

The Hall effect

This entire article fails to mention the Hall effect at all, as of February 8, 2013. There should at least be a mention of the Hall effect in a "see also" section.98.81.0.161 (talk) 15:39, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Does anyone know what electricity is made of?

I learned in high school chemistry it was made of moving electrons, which would make electricity a type of matter, but there is no mention of this in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.52.144.83 (talk) 06:33, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Okay, I just saw in the "Electric current" section that "current can consist of any moving charged particles; most commonly these are electrons, but any charge in motion constitutes a current." It would be nice if the article said how common it is for the current to be made of electrons. Are the currents that come out of power sockets composed of electrons? I know that the part of lightning that reaches downward is negatively charged and the part that reaches upward is positively charged, so is the negative part electrons and the positive part protons? What are the types of electricity that are not made of electrons? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.52.144.83 (talk) 06:44, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

They're nearly always positively charged ions, but in some rare cases positrons or sometimes protons (i.e. hydrogen nuclei). As to how often, a fluorescent light is both positive and negative, because it's a plasma, but the electricity in a copper wire is always electrons. In a semiconductors it's quite complex and sort of involves both positive and negatives and involves quantum mechanics.

Basically: it's complicated, and varies.Teapeat (talk) 07:15, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Antiscientific statements

The comment above is full of antiscientific nonsense, and I should surely know from my bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering at top schools in the United States. This nonsense is especially pertinent in that electricity is NOT a form of energy. Also, electric current and voltage are both forms of electricity. The adjectives electric and electrical both apply to electricity, and furthermore, they are interchangable in meaning: i.e. they are exact synonyms, and the choice of which to use is merely custom. Please see "electric motor", "electrical engineer", and "electric current", and note that "electric transformer" and "electrical transformer" are both in use.
Furthermore, the above comment in full of nonsense in the English language because "electric charge", "electricity", "electric current", "physics", and "quantity of electricity", are NOT proper nouns, and they are NOT capitalized, except for in the usual exceptions such as being the first word in a sentence and being used in the titles of books. They may not be capitalized for some form of emphasis, and they must not be capitalized out of sheer ignorace. On the other hand, "Leyden" most certainly is a proper noun, and I have made this change to avoid insulting the entire city of Leyden in The Netherlands. {Please think of New England clam chowder, Brunswick stew, Brussels sprouts, Wiener schnitzel, and New York style cheesecake, in which the capitalized parts remain capitalized. Also, there are names of pastries in Germany with names like "Berliner".} The name Leiden is also spelled like this in modern Dutch.
Furthermore, upon their first appearance, " is the proper form for quotation marks, such as in "Berliner". See the following comments in which this was done already by the writers.98.81.0.161 (talk) 15:05, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

And I think this thing about electrons moving slowly or cycling backwards and forwards a bit, to my mind that says more about how powerful the electromagnetic forces really are than anything else. They create big forces and hardly move! Feynman once said that if there was a small percentage imbalance in the charges in your body, you would explode at near to the speed of light! Electrical forces are really, really strong!Planetscared (talk) 17:25, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

You want to "cover" this electricity new-fangled idea like phlogiston or aether or the Bohr-Rutherford atom? As a history of science thingie? But where is our cutoff- - about the time of Maxwell's paper of 1861? Since you seem to have no trouble wanting to discuss the near-field inductive parts of the near and far fields of electromagnetics as "electricity", but you don't like the far-fields (EM radiation) that are just as necessary? You're okay with electric trains, motors, transformers and metal detectors, but regard radio as "off the reservation"? How abouy MRI pick-up coils? Are you going to give me the "Lorentz" force? Can Maxwell have back his imaginary displacement current in free space, even though no actual charges are flowing across the insulating capacitor gap (or indeed in any vacuum, for any signal)? Is it at THAT point that Maxwell's romantic notion of EMF takes us into the modern age and requires us to go beyond Faraday and Ampere's quaint "electricity"? SBHarris 21:07, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm certainly not saying that most of those things should be completely excluded, but I don't feel that they're the core of the topic, but they're related in a way that is important to the topic, and thus should be mentioned (probably not MRI coils though, unless I'm missing something).Planetscared (talk) 01:03, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

More to the point: what is the scientific definition of the term "electricity?" If we say that electricity is the flow of charges, then do most physics refs state that the quantity of electricity is to be measured in Amperes? No? (I think they do not.) And, should WP adhere to a physicist's definitions of terms, or do we employ popular non-scientific usage which may conflict with physics refs? 162.208.40.196 (talk) 04:37, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Flow of Electric Current???

In the first part of the article, it states some of the effects of electricity as being "...the flow of electric current." Please correct this to read "...electric current." Saying "the flow of electric current" is akin to saying "the flow of flow". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:2:380:4E0:8095:3DBC:ABE6:CE63 (talk) 19:18, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

I do not agree. Do you think that "the flow of a river current" is tautological? I don't think so. A river current is composed of a river and the sort of motion the river exhibits-- both of those. When you speak of the flow of a river current you are talking about the flow or motion part of the current, which is to say, the flow itself, and not the water. I can make a rheological chart that has only the flow (say, of a river) and ignores what the flow is made of. That flow structure could then be imposed on any fluid, like a stream of alcohol (which is not a river). Electric current is not just "flow". It's a flow (or motion) of electric charges. Flow means a particular kind of motion, and that's all it means. SBHarris 02:53, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

'Flow of a river current' is not tautological, but it is subtly different from how the 'river water is flowing'. The flow of a river current is how the river current changes/moves over time, like if there's a vortex street shedding, the flow can be moving at ninety degrees to the water flow.GliderMaven (talk) 03:25, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Electrical current, Sbharris, is defined as "the flow of electric charge." Saying electric current is the "flow of electric current" is the same as saying "the flow of the flow of electric charge." It doesn't make sense. The word "flow" was taken out, and it should remain out since it already is included in the definition. Also, saying the "flow of river current" is also redundant in that river current is defined as the flow of water in a channel. So saying the "flow of the flow of water in a channel." Alanwilliams101 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alanwilliams101 (talk • contribs) 01:31, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 January 2014

Delete that useless footnote. 220.255.1.52 (talk) 04:30, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Done Thank you --Anon126 (talk - contribs) 07:03, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Title of William Gilbert

William Gilbert is described in the "History" section as being a scientist. This is an anachronism, scientists didn't exist in 1600, the word hadn't even been invented, he was a Natural Philosopher. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.76.7.206 (talk) 15:18, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

RFC: in grammar, is "charge" a count noun or a mass noun?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

In the electrical field, is the word "charge" a count noun, which should be treated as a plural whenever more than one electron is involved, or is it a mass noun (which refers to an indeterminate aggregation of things) and should be treated as singular even when more than one electron is involved?

Discussion of whether "charge" is a count noun or mass noun

All the books I've ever read and all the professionals I've worked with treat "charge" as a mass noun in the electrical and electronics field of study. But in this edit User:GliderMaven treats "charge" as a count noun. [The terms "count noun" and "mass noun" are taken from the Chicago Manual of Style, 16th ed. (2010) p. 204–5.] Jc3s5h (talk) 16:49, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

You're right. This is as stupid as the similar edit-warring to replace "current" with "current flow". Andy Dingley (talk) 17:09, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

You're not grammatically wrong; but there's electrical phenomenon that don't directly involve flow of electric charge in any normal sense.

For example if I have two charged plates and I bring them nearer to each other, there's no charge flow, but the voltage has changed.

When you use 'electric charge' you're specifically referring to something measured in coulombs, but when you refer to 'electric charges' you're referring to the full generality of behaviors that electric charges are subject to.

The other thing is that 'electric charge' is a more sophisticated concept than 'electric charges', so it's probably harder for the average reader to know or get a general sense what you're talking about. It's not possible to understand what an 'electric charge' is without understanding what electric charges are.GliderMaven (talk) 20:41, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

It depends on the context: 'electric charge' as a property of subatomic particles is a mass noun, but one can refer to charged particles as countable 'electric charges'. There's also concepts like 'charge density' where one refers to the amount, not the property, but nevertheless in a non-integer way. @GliderMaven: electric charges are carriers of electric charge ;-) It's related concepts, so it depends on where you start explaining. — HHHIPPO 21:18, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

In the context of the edit being discussed though, I think the mass noun is better grammatically, it's not discussing individual charged particles, but a "stream" of them.--Topperfalkon (talk) 23:51, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

• Mass noun. In this context I agree that a mass noun is appropriate. Even in particle physics charge is generally treated as a mass noun even though it is believed to be quantised. I do not think our grammar fully takes account of quantum physics yet. Martin Hogbin (talk) 09:57, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

I agree. — HHHIPPO 17:44, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

You say: electric charge' as a property of subatomic particles is a mass noun this could not be more false. The electric charge of a subatomic particle is a fundamental property of a single particle, whereas 'electric charge' in the sense of the article is a collection of charges. There's no sense that 'electric charge' is a mass property (where 'mass' denotes multitude, or inertial mass) for subatomic physics. But the article is not about subatomic particles, and what is written in the article is, in general, false, and more confusing for the reader.GliderMaven (talk) 19:06, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

I was referring to the property as such, as in "some subatomic particles possess electric charge", not to its value, as in "the electric charges of electrons and muons are equal". I took the example from the first bullet point in the lede to make sure it is relevant for the article.

In my experience, 'electric charge' is used as a mass noun in the literature whenever not explicitly referring to individual charge carriers, and that should be reflected here even if it was false. (Whatever you mean by 'false', contradicting some definition? Which one? And what does 'more false' mean?)

I don't see what's confusing about that. Using the mass noun doesn't imply that charge is not quantized, we just don't mention the quantization yet since it's not relevant for all the phenomena the sentence is about. — HHHIPPO 20:37, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

'Mass noun' has no real connection with inertial or gravitational mass. It refers to a noun for something that is generally considered uncountable, such as 'water' or 'heat'. What I actually said was, 'in particle physics charge is generally treated as a mass noun'. This is the case, physicists talk about the charge of an electron being three times larger than the charge of a down quark.

In the macroscopic world physicists treat charge just like heat or water. It is measured in coulombs not counted. Martin Hogbin (talk) 22:35, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Here is what the Electric current article says, 'An electric current is a flow of electric charge. In electric circuits this charge is often carried by moving electrons in a wire'. Why not say something similar here. We use 'charge' as a mass noun but state that electric currents are generally carried by charge carriers (count noun) such as electrons. Martin Hogbin (talk) 22:52, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

• Both okay; apply MOS:STABILITY: Hi. Corpus of Contemporary American English reports both forms in widespread use. For example:

"Take the tantalum capacitor, a component of circuits that holds an electric charge"

—James Temple (2012-03-25). "Fair-trade cell phones might not be feasible". San Francisco Chronicle.

"Third, quarks possessed the awkward property of fractional electric charge, something never observed (even to this day) for a subatomic particle."

—Tom Siegfried (Sep 12, 2009). Science News. 176 (6): 24. {{cite journal}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

"They bang into one another. This builds up electric charges."

—Samaras, Tim (Mar 2012). "In The Strike Zone". National Geographic Explorer.

There are more examples, if you wish to visit the site.

Best regards,

Codename Lisa (talk) 23:08, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

I think these excerpts are often too short to tell whether charge is being used as a count or mass noun. It is normal to use charge as a count noun when writing about small numbers of charge carriers. Even when using it as a mass noun for numbers of charge carriers that are impractical to count, or think about, the word "charges" could be used, for example, "the charges on capacitors A and B are different." Jc3s5h (talk) 00:12, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi. Actual excerpts were full paragraphs but I didn't copy and paste per copyright laws. Since the website is free, you can find out by visiting it yourself. But I chose my examples carefully. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 01:22, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Comment Phew! OK. I am here only because I got asked, but as far as I can see all the relevant points have been covered, and a few times at that. What I say here is mainly summary in compatibility with my views:

• When in doubt in common as well as engineering and scientific speech, the mass-noun approach is appropriate (not so much "right" or "wrong", just "appropriate").
• This does not imply that the word cannot logically have a plural, as in: "Compare the charges in all those capacitors and select the two with the most closely matched charges."
• There are senses other than in engineering, eg particle physics, in which the plurals may have precise meanings: "The combined charges on those three quarks add up to the single charge on one electron."
• Even in particle physics one can measure fractional charges (not even counting quark charges) when there are resonances between states that flip to leave an average charge in a given position, the value of which is not an integer.
• In summary, use either assumption according to context and convenience, but when using the plural, do stop occasionally to be sure that that is what you really mean.

No big deal. JonRichfield (talk) 11:51, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Mass noun I've only ever heard charge used like mass. When "charge" is plural it means two objects with charge such as two electrons or two quarks. Floatsam (talk) 01:26, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

setting up and hooking a electric line frome my house to my new shed.

How do I figure out which wire I need to purchase from Lowes home improvement. I have dugged a trench "18 inches deep to lay the line i , the plastiv poles(8' long each). I need to know how far to the hose and how close to the meter on the wall of the brick house. Do I drill in the brick to get to the inside panel which is inside of the house. Do I need also to know what the best way to hook it up. What type of wire would be best to use for this connection. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.74.18.184 (talk) 03:56, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, we cannot help you here, this page is for discussing improvements to the 'Electricity' article. You might try asking on reference desk. Martin Hogbin (talk) 10:43, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

Is it ions or photons?

This article says electricity is made of charged particles such as electrons, protons, or ions. However, the Electromagnetism and Photon articles say electricity is made of photons. So which is correct? Or are they both right? Do the "waves" of photons carry the charged particles inside them like how a river carries fish swept up in a strong current? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.209.34.251 (talk) 14:42, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

The movement of charged particles (electrons or ions) in matter, such as wires, is electricity. Whenever this movement is unsteady, or the wires are accelerated, energy is radiated in the form of photons. Conversely, when photons strike matter, they can cause electrons or ions in the matter to move, creating electricity. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:54, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 22 February 2015

Bismark123 (talk) 16:53, 22 February 2015 (UTC)please can someone edit it for me i need it for my school science project please help me

@Bismark123: You need to tell us exactly what you want to change/add. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 16:57, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Improving the history section

It seems like Coulomb should also be added somewhere in history section. I don't know much about electricity, that's why I'm reading this article, but I think Coulomb's experiment does have some impact in electricity. Or is his experiment negligible in electricity? Also I think there is huge gap between Gilbert in 1600 and Benjamin Franklin in 1752. Was there a gap between those periods? Chulman444 (talk) 03:32, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

It seems like the history section should tell about when electricity became readily available to average people. William hanna (talk) 04:21, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

More data to the old generator picture

Sorry, I don't have right to edit. The detailed subscription is below. Capras Dávid (talk) 18:39, 30 September 2015 (UTC) [[:File:Gorskii 04414u.jpg|thumb|right|320px|Early 20th-century alternator made by Ganz Works in 1909 in Budapest, Hungary, in the power generating hall of the biggest hydroelectric station of the Russian Empire (photograph by Prokudin-Gorsky, 1911)]]

References

Semi-protected edit request on 11 December 2015

Possibly the earliest and nearest approach to the discovery of the identity of lightning, and electricity from any other source, is to be attributed to the Arabs, who before the 15th century had the Arabic word for lightning (Buraq) applied to the electric ray.[5] Eng msaif1 (talk) 07:31, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. Eteethan(talk) 17:22, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 14 December 2015

te 98.174.230.184 (talk) 02:49, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

• Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. --Stabila711 (talk) 02:57, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 12 February 2016

BALLLLZZZZZ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.97.236.219 (talk) 22:25, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

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Semi-protected edit request on 9 March 2016

204.109.96.59 (talk) 15:13, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Not done: as you have not requested a change.
If you want to suggest a change, please request this in the form "Please replace XXX with YYY" or "Please add ZZZ between PPP and QQQ".
Please also cite reliable sources to back up your request, without which no information should be added to, or changed in, any article. - Arjayay (talk) 15:36, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

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Please add a space

please add a space between phenomenon and electromagnetism. Vyvek (talk) 11:57, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean. The word 'phenomenon' occurs six times in the text and on only one occasion is it followed by the word 'electromagnetism'. This is in the lede, where it says "... both are recognized as part of a single phenomenon: electromagnetism." There is a space (and a colon) between 'phenomenon' and 'electromagnetism'. What am I missing? —BillC ^talk 19:42, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 16 February 2017

Violent electricity can be dangerous — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:C55F:2FA0:D59A:A749:561B:29AD (talk) 23:25, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 May 2017

In the electric field section (Section 2.3), the following statement is made. "Air, for example, tends to arc across small gaps at electric field strengths which exceed 30 kV per centimetre. Over larger gaps, its breakdown strength is weaker, perhaps 1 kV per centimeter." But it scientifically derived using Paschen's law that air (or any gas) breakdown voltage decreases with increase in the gap between the electrodes. The statement made in the mentioned section is wrong and it needs to be corrected. 122.181.183.226 (talk) 07:02, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Do you mean voltage, or electric field? The voltage required for an arc to form will increase with increasing gap distance beyond the Paschen minimum, which occurs at low pressures and very small gaps. —BillC ^talk 23:38, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

 Not done It is not clear what the change requested is, even long after BillC's request for clarification. Please use the "Change X to Y" format for proposed changes in the future. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 18:53, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 7 July 2017

Current text of first paragraph: Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence of electric charge. Although initially considered a phenomenon separate to magnetism, since the development of Maxwell's Equations both are recognized as part of a single phenomenon: electromagnetism. Various common phenomena are related to electricity, including lightning, static electricity, electric heating, electric discharges and many others. In addition, electricity is at the heart of many modern technologies.

Preposition is incorrect ("separate to" should be "separate from") , comma is missing (should have comma after "Maxwell's Equations" so the sentence can be read correctly. Proposed text: Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence of electric charge. Although initially considered a phenomenon separate from magnetism, since the development of Maxwell's Equations, both are recognized as part of a single phenomenon: electromagnetism. Various common phenomena are related to electricity, including lightning, static electricity, electric heating, electric discharges and many others. In addition, electricity is at the heart of many modern technologies. Fastfilm99 (talk) 16:34, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Done DRAGON BOOSTER ★ 17:19, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

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