Electrical Energy in the Home:
- One of the main advantages of electricity is that it can be moved with comparative ease from one place to another through Electric Current.
- Describe the behaviours of electrostatic charges and the properties of the fields associated with them
- Electric charges are associated with sub-atomic particles
- Electric fields surround electric charges such that another electric field placed within that field will experience a force
- Two types of charges: Positive (Protons) and Negative (Electrons)
- Two like charges will repel but opposite charges will attract
- + and – charges are usually able to affect neutral objects
- Define the unit of electric charge as the coulomb
- The unit of measuring charge is the coulomb (C)
- The coulomb itself is a large unit such that one coulomb of charge is equivalent to the magnitude of the charge carried by 6.24 X 10 18 electrons
- Therefore the magnitude of a charge carried by an electron is 16.24 ×1018 C
- The charge for one electron is -1.602 X 10-19 C
- The charge for one proton is +1.602 X 10-19 C
- Describe the behaviour of electrostatic charges and the properties of the fields associated with them
- Define the electric field as a field of force with a field strength equal to the force per unit charge at that point E=Fq
- An electric field is a region in which a charged particle will experience a force
- An electric field is a vector quantity, which means it must have both magnitude and direction
- Strength of an electric field at any point is defined as the size of the electric force action on a unit of charge
- Direction of an electric field at any point is defined as the direction of the force on a positive charge when placed at this point
