conceptual electricity

PURUSHOTAM SHRESTHA

lectricity starts with electric charge. The charge is a very basic quantity. (There are theories that defines the composition of proton, neutron and electron, the basis of charges, lets not bother about that.) It is either positive or negative. The quantity of charge in a body is mainly due to electrons, either excess- negative charge or deficit- positive charge. The two types of charges have the property that, like charges repel and opposite charges attract, and this is what causes the events, virtually all of it, to occur.

hen there is a distribution of charges in space, the charges interact with application of either attractive or repulsive force to each other. In presence of a charge A, another charge B experiences a force, lets say F. The force has a property that it decreases as the distance between the two increases. And the higher the quantity of the two interacting charges, the higher the force. Coulumb's law gives us the force between two charges.

lectric Field Intensity is a measure of how much force an unit electric charge experiences in influence of the field or presence of another source charge. Referred to the above example, the electric field intensity at the point of location of charge B is defined as how much force an unit charge, a value of 1 Coulomb, would feel if placed at that point, or mathematically Electric Field Intensity

. that gives us Newton/Coulomb.

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ets say a number of charges are scattered on a surface. If one of the charges, q, of the distribution is to be moved a distance, say, d, certain force, f, must be applied to get the charge moving, or work must be done on the charge. The work done on the charge is stored as some form of energy, the electric potential energy, similarly in the way the potential energy in a mass is increased or stored when its height is increased in reference to the earth's surface, in this case the gravitational potential energy or simply potential energy. Now the charge has stored energy and thus capability to do some work. The work done in moving a unit charge from one point to another point in presence of an electric field is the potential difference between those points. The electric potential of a point is the amount of work done in bringing a unit charge from a reference point where it is zero, where there is no electric field, to that point. Potential Difference between two points, P1 and P2, is

volts, V, honoring Alessandro Volta.

s the charge moves away from the source of electric field, the force required to move it becomes less that implies less work to be done for same conditions. So one can say there is relationship between the electric field and the amount of work to be done per unit charge per unit distance; electric field intensity decreases with distance, the work required to be done per unit charge decreases with distance, so electric field intensity at point can be defined as the amount of the work to be done to move an unit charge an unit of a distance. The exact calculation is a subject of calculus. This way the electric field can be phrased as potential gradient.

Volts/meter.
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ecause of the energy stored, the potential difference developed, in the charge, it has tendency to do some work: move in influence of the potential difference or as we now call it the electromotive force, emf for short. The stored energy or the potential differnce now acts as a force, the electro motive force. Simply put, emf is energy stored(or work done) per unit charge and is measured in Volts. Emf drives the charges and produces current, flow of charges per unit time. Current,

The current is measured in Amperes, from Andre Ampere.

hile flowing the charges must overcome some obstructions in the material medium they are flowing. The obstruction is known as Resistance, R. The resistance is physical property of material itself, related to its dimensions and an intrinsic material property known as resistivity. The amount of charges flowing per unit time, the current, depends on how hard the emf is pushing the charges against this resistance or how less is the resistance. The relationship is like this, which is known as Ohm's law.

esistivity is how hard a material obstructs the flow of charge through itself. The opposite is Conductivity, how easily a material allows the flow of charge through itself; the higher the value, the easier for the charges to flow through it.

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he rate of flow of charge can be expressed as the current flowing through a cross sectional area that is perpendicular to the direction of flow of the current, the current density,

measured in Ampere/meter squared.

f a material is exposed to an electric field, the charges contained in the material will arrange themselves in a certain manner, in accordance with the amount and polarity of the charges and the intensity and direction of electric field. The action would place certain amount of charge, per unit area, creating some electric field within, or one can say the intensity of electric field would create a certain electric charge density in the material. Thus we find a new quantity, called permittivity, which is a measure of how well an electric field penetrates or affects a material medium. Permittivity is an intrinsic property of material related to the individual bulk of charge and their position, and the medium, that allows the applied electric field to create an electric charge density in it by redistributing/reorienting the charges. It's unit is Farads/meter.

he relative permittivity is a result of comparison (a ratio) of the permittivity of the material in discussion to that of vaccum. It's unitless quantity.

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