1.
Saturn Launch Vehicle Digital Computer
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The Saturn Launch Vehicle Digital Computer was a computer that provided the autopilot for the Saturn V rocket from launch to Earth orbit insertion. It was one of the components of the Instrument Unit, fitted to the S-IVB stage of the Saturn V. The LVDC also supported pre- and post-launch checkout of the Saturn hardware, the LVDC was used in conjunction with the Launch Vehicle Data Adaptor which performed signal conditioning to the sensor inputs to the computer from the launch vehicle. The LVDC was capable of executing 12190 instructions per second, for comparison, a 2012-era microprocessor can execute 4 instructions per cycle at 3 GHz, achieving 12 billion instructions per second, one million times faster. Its master clock ran at 2, memory was in the form of 13-bit syllables, each with a 14th parity bit. Instructions were one syllable in size, while data words were two syllables, main memory was random access magnetic core, in the form of 4, 096-word memory modules. Up to 8 modules provided a maximum of 32,768 words of memory, ultrasonic delay lines provided temporary storage. For reliability, the LVDC used triple-redundant logic and a voting system, the computer included three identical logic systems. Each logic system was split into a seven-stage pipeline, at each stage in the pipeline, a voting system would take a majority vote on the results, with the most popular result being passed on to the next stage in all pipelines. This meant that, for each of the seven stages, one module in any one of the three pipelines could fail, and the LVDC would still produce the correct results. The result was a reliability of 99. 6% over 250 hours of operation. With four memory modules, giving a capacity of 16,384 words. LVDC instruction words were split into a 4-bit opcode field and a 9-bit operand address field, memory was broken into 256-word sectors. 8 bits of the address specified a word within a sector, the eighteen possible LVDC instructions were, Unlike the Apollo Guidance Computer software, the software which ran on the LVDC seems to have vanished. The LVDC could also respond to a number of interrupts triggered by external events. For a Saturn IB these interrupts were, For a Saturn V these interrupts were, The LVDC was approximately 30 inches wide,12.5 inches high, and 10.5 inches deep and weighed 80 pounds. The chassis was made of magnesium-lithium alloy LA141, chosen for its stiffness, low weight. The chassis was divided into a 3 x 5 matrix of cells separated by walls through which coolant was circulated to remove the 138 Watts of power dissipated by the computer, slots in the cell walls held “pages” of electronics
2.
Electric charge
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Electric charge is the physical property of matter that causes it to experience a force when placed in an electromagnetic field. There are two types of charges, positive and negative. Like charges repel and unlike attract, an absence of net charge is referred to as neutral. An object is charged if it has an excess of electrons. The SI derived unit of charge is the coulomb. In electrical engineering, it is common to use the ampere-hour. The symbol Q often denotes charge, early knowledge of how charged substances interact is now called classical electrodynamics, and is still accurate for problems that dont require consideration of quantum effects. The electric charge is a conserved property of some subatomic particles. Electrically charged matter is influenced by, and produces, electromagnetic fields, the interaction between a moving charge and an electromagnetic field is the source of the electromagnetic force, which is one of the four fundamental forces. 602×10−19 coulombs. The proton has a charge of +e, and the electron has a charge of −e, the study of charged particles, and how their interactions are mediated by photons, is called quantum electrodynamics. Charge is the property of forms of matter that exhibit electrostatic attraction or repulsion in the presence of other matter. Electric charge is a property of many subatomic particles. The charges of free-standing particles are integer multiples of the charge e. Michael Faraday, in his electrolysis experiments, was the first to note the discrete nature of electric charge, robert Millikans oil drop experiment demonstrated this fact directly, and measured the elementary charge. By convention, the charge of an electron is −1, while that of a proton is +1, charged particles whose charges have the same sign repel one another, and particles whose charges have different signs attract. The charge of an antiparticle equals that of the corresponding particle, quarks have fractional charges of either −1/3 or +2/3, but free-standing quarks have never been observed. The electric charge of an object is the sum of the electric charges of the particles that make it up. An ion is an atom that has lost one or more electrons, giving it a net charge, or that has gained one or more electrons
3.
Battery (electricity)
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An electric battery is a device consisting of one or more electrochemical cells with external connections provided to power electrical devices such as flashlights, smartphones, and electric cars. When a battery is supplying power, its positive terminal is the cathode. The terminal marked negative is the source of electrons that when connected to a circuit will flow. It is the movement of ions within the battery which allows current to flow out of the battery to perform work. Historically the term specifically referred to a device composed of multiple cells. Primary batteries are used once and discarded, the materials are irreversibly changed during discharge. Common examples are the battery used for flashlights and a multitude of portable electronic devices. Secondary batteries can be discharged and recharged multiple times using mains power from a wall socket, examples include the lead-acid batteries used in vehicles and lithium-ion batteries used for portable electronics such as laptops and smartphones. According to a 2005 estimate, the battery industry generates US$48 billion in sales each year. Batteries have much lower energy than common fuels such as gasoline. This is somewhat offset by the efficiency of electric motors in producing mechanical work. The usage of battery to describe a group of electrical devices dates to Benjamin Franklin, alessandro Volta built and described the first electrochemical battery, the voltaic pile, in 1800. This was a stack of copper and zinc plates, separated by brine-soaked paper disks, Volta did not understand that the voltage was due to chemical reactions. Although early batteries were of value for experimental purposes, in practice their voltages fluctuated. It consisted of a pot filled with a copper sulfate solution, in which was immersed an unglazed earthenware container filled with sulfuric acid. These wet cells used liquid electrolytes, which were prone to leakage and spillage if not handled correctly, many used glass jars to hold their components, which made them fragile and potentially dangerous. These characteristics made wet cells unsuitable for portable appliances, near the end of the nineteenth century, the invention of dry cell batteries, which replaced the liquid electrolyte with a paste, made portable electrical devices practical. Batteries convert chemical energy directly to electrical energy, a battery consists of some number of voltaic cells
4.
Electrical conductor
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In physics and electrical engineering, a conductor is an object or type of material that allows the flow of an electrical current in one or more directions. Materials made of metal are common electrical conductors, Electrical current is generated by the flow of negatively charged electrons, positively charged holes, and positive or negative ions in some cases. In order for current to flow, it is not necessary for one charged particle to travel from the producing the current to that consuming it. Instead, the particle simply needs to nudge its neighbor a finite amount who will nudge its neighbor and on and on until a particle is nudged into the consumer. Essentially what is occurring here is a chain of momentum transfer between mobile charge carriers, the Drude model of conduction describes this process more rigorously. Insulators are non-conducting materials with few mobile charges that support only insignificant electric currents, the resistance of a given conductor depends on the material it is made of, and on its dimensions. For a given material, the resistance is proportional to the cross-sectional area. For example, a copper wire has lower resistance than an otherwise-identical thin copper wire. Also, for a material, the resistance is proportional to the length, for example. The resistance R and conductance G of a conductor of uniform cross section, therefore, the resistivity and conductivity are proportionality constants, and therefore depend only on the material the wire is made of, not the geometry of the wire. Resistivity and conductivity are reciprocals, ρ =1 / σ, resistivity is a measure of the materials ability to oppose electric current. This formula is not exact, It assumes the current density is uniform in the conductor. However, this still provides a good approximation for long thin conductors such as wires. Another situation this formula is not exact for is with alternating current, then, the geometrical cross-section is different from the effective cross-section in which current actually flows, so the resistance is higher than expected. Similarly, if two conductors are each other carrying AC current, their resistances increase due to the proximity effect. Aside from the geometry of the wire, temperature also has a significant effect on the efficacy of conductors, temperature affects conductors in two main ways, the first is that materials may expand under the application of heat. The amount that the material will expand is governed by the expansion coefficient specific to the material. Such an expansion will change the geometry of the conductor and therefore its characteristic resistance, however, this effect is generally small, on the order of 10−6
5.
Semiconductor
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Semiconductors are crystalline or amorphous solids with distinct electrical characteristics. They are of high electrical resistance — higher than typical resistance materials and their resistance decreases as their temperature increases, which is behavior opposite to that of a metal. The behavior of charge carriers which include electrons, ions and electron holes at these junctions is the basis of diodes, transistors and all modern electronics. Semiconductor devices can display a range of properties such as passing current more easily in one direction than the other, showing variable resistance. The modern understanding of the properties of a semiconductor relies on quantum physics to explain the movement of carriers in a crystal lattice. Doping greatly increases the number of carriers within the crystal. When a doped semiconductor contains mostly free holes it is called p-type, the semiconductor materials used in electronic devices are doped under precise conditions to control the concentration and regions of p- and n-type dopants. A single semiconductor crystal can have many p- and n-type regions, although some pure elements and many compounds display semiconductor properties, silicon, germanium, and compounds of gallium are the most widely used in electronic devices. Elements near the so-called metalloid staircase, where the metalloids are located on the table, are usually used as semiconductors. Some of the properties of materials were observed throughout the mid 19th. The first practical application of semiconductors in electronics was the 1904 development of the Cats-whisker detector, developments in quantum physics in turn allowed the development of the transistor in 1947 and the integrated circuit in 1958. There are several developed techniques that allow semiconducting materials to behave like conducting materials and these modifications have two outcomes, n-type and p-type. These refer to the excess or shortage of electrons, respectively, an unbalanced number of electrons would cause a current to flow through the material. Heterojunctions Heterojunctions occur when two differently doped semiconducting materials are joined together, for example, a configuration could consist of p-doped and n-doped germanium. This results in an exchange of electrons and holes between the differently doped semiconducting materials, the n-doped germanium would have an excess of electrons, and the p-doped germanium would have an excess of holes. The transfer occurs until equilibrium is reached by a process called recombination, a product of this process is charged ions, which result in an electric field. Excited Electrons A difference in electric potential on a material would cause it to leave thermal equilibrium. This introduces electrons and holes to the system, which interact via a process called ambipolar diffusion, whenever thermal equilibrium is disturbed in a semiconducting material, the amount of holes and electrons changes
6.
Insulator (electricity)
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An electrical insulator is a material whose internal electric charges do not flow freely, very little electric current will flow through it under the influence of an electric field. This contrasts with other materials, semiconductors and conductors, which conduct electric current more easily, the property that distinguishes an insulator is its resistivity, insulators have higher resistivity than semiconductors or conductors. A perfect insulator does not exist, because even insulators contain small numbers of mobile charges which can carry current, in addition, all insulators become electrically conductive when a sufficiently large voltage is applied that the electric field tears electrons away from the atoms. This is known as the voltage of an insulator. Some materials such as glass, paper and Teflon, which have high resistivity, are good electrical insulators. Examples include rubber-like polymers and most plastics which can be thermoset or thermoplastic in nature, insulators are used in electrical equipment to support and separate electrical conductors without allowing current through themselves. An insulating material used in bulk to wrap electrical cables or other equipment is called insulation, the term insulator is also used more specifically to refer to insulating supports used to attach electric power distribution or transmission lines to utility poles and transmission towers. They support the weight of the suspended wires without allowing the current to flow through the tower to ground, electrical insulation is the absence of electrical conduction. Electronic band theory says that a charge flows if states are available into which electrons can be excited and this allows electrons to gain energy and thereby move through a conductor such as a metal. If no such states are available, the material is an insulator, most insulators have a large band gap. This occurs because the valence band containing the highest energy electrons is full, there is always some voltage that gives electrons enough energy to be excited into this band. Once this voltage is exceeded the material ceases being an insulator, however, it is usually accompanied by physical or chemical changes that permanently degrade the materials insulating properties. Materials that lack electron conduction are insulators if they lack other mobile charges as well, for example, if a liquid or gas contains ions, then the ions can be made to flow as an electric current, and the material is a conductor. Electrolytes and plasmas contain ions and act as conductors whether or not electron flow is involved, when subjected to a high enough voltage, insulators suffer from the phenomenon of electrical breakdown. These freed electrons and ions are in turn accelerated and strike other atoms, creating more charge carriers, rapidly the insulator becomes filled with mobile charge carriers, and its resistance drops to a low level. In a solid, the voltage is proportional to the band gap energy. The air in a region around a conductor can break down and ionise without a catastrophic increase in current. Even a vacuum can suffer a sort of breakdown, but in case the breakdown or vacuum arc involves charges ejected from the surface of metal electrodes rather than produced by the vacuum itself
7.
Vacuum
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Vacuum is space void of matter. The word stems from the Latin adjective vacuus for vacant or void, an approximation to such vacuum is a region with a gaseous pressure much less than atmospheric pressure. In engineering and applied physics on the hand, vacuum refers to any space in which the pressure is lower than atmospheric pressure. The Latin term in vacuo is used to describe an object that is surrounded by a vacuum, the quality of a partial vacuum refers to how closely it approaches a perfect vacuum. Other things equal, lower gas pressure means higher-quality vacuum, for example, a typical vacuum cleaner produces enough suction to reduce air pressure by around 20%. Ultra-high vacuum chambers, common in chemistry, physics, and engineering, operate below one trillionth of atmospheric pressure, outer space is an even higher-quality vacuum, with the equivalent of just a few hydrogen atoms per cubic meter on average. In the electromagnetism in the 19th century, vacuum was thought to be filled with a medium called aether, in modern particle physics, the vacuum state is considered the ground state of matter. Vacuum has been a frequent topic of debate since ancient Greek times. Evangelista Torricelli produced the first laboratory vacuum in 1643, and other techniques were developed as a result of his theories of atmospheric pressure. A torricellian vacuum is created by filling a glass container closed at one end with mercury. Vacuum became an industrial tool in the 20th century with the introduction of incandescent light bulbs and vacuum tubes. The recent development of human spaceflight has raised interest in the impact of vacuum on human health, the word vacuum comes from Latin an empty space, void, noun use of neuter of vacuus, meaning empty, related to vacare, meaning be empty. Vacuum is one of the few words in the English language that contains two consecutive letters u. Historically, there has been dispute over whether such a thing as a vacuum can exist. Ancient Greek philosophers debated the existence of a vacuum, or void, in the context of atomism, Aristotle believed that no void could occur naturally, because the denser surrounding material continuum would immediately fill any incipient rarity that might give rise to a void. Almost two thousand years after Plato, René Descartes also proposed a geometrically based alternative theory of atomism, without the problematic nothing–everything dichotomy of void, by the ancient definition however, directional information and magnitude were conceptually distinct. The explanation of a clepsydra or water clock was a topic in the Middle Ages. Although a simple wine skin sufficed to demonstrate a partial vacuum, in principle and he concluded that airs volume can expand to fill available space, and he suggested that the concept of perfect vacuum was incoherent. However, according to Nader El-Bizri, the physicist Ibn al-Haytham and the Mutazili theologians disagreed with Aristotle and Al-Farabi, using geometry, Ibn al-Haytham mathematically demonstrated that place is the imagined three-dimensional void between the inner surfaces of a containing body
8.
Cathode ray
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Cathode rays are streams of electrons observed in vacuum tubes. They were first observed in 1869 by German physicist Johann Hittorf, electrons were discovered as the constituents of cathode rays. In 1897 British physicist J. J. Thomson showed the rays were composed of a previously unknown negatively charged particle, Cathode ray tubes use a focused beam of electrons deflected by electric or magnetic fields to create the image in a classic television set. Cathode rays are made up of charged particles. Cathode rays are so named because they are emitted by the electrode, or cathode. This contrasts with cations, which are charged and go — Greek ἰόν — toward a cathode in solution. To release electrons into the tube, they first must be detached from the atoms of the cathode, modern vacuum tubes use thermionic emission, in which the cathode is made of a thin wire filament which is heated by a separate electric current passing through it. The increased random heat motion of the filament knocks electrons out at the surface of the filament, since the electrons have a negative charge, they are repelled by the cathode and attracted to the anode. They travel in straight lines through the empty tube, the voltage applied between the electrodes accelerates these low mass particles to high velocities. Researchers noticed that objects placed in the tube in front of the cathode could cast a shadow on the glowing wall, and realized that something must be travelling in straight lines from the cathode. After the electrons reach the anode, they travel through the wire to the power supply and back to the cathode. The current in a beam of cathode rays through a tube can be controlled by passing it through a screen of wires to which a small voltage is applied. The electric field of the wires deflects some of the electrons, thus a small voltage on the grid can be made to control a much larger voltage on the anode. This is the used in vacuum tubes to amplify electrical signals. These are used in cathode ray tubes, found in televisions and computer monitors, after the 1654 invention of the vacuum pump by Otto von Guericke, physicists began to experiment with passing high voltage electricity through rarefied air. In 1705, it was noted that electrostatic generator sparks travel a distance through low pressure air than through atmospheric pressure air. In 1838, Michael Faraday passed a current through an air filled glass tube and noticed a strange light arc with its beginning at the cathode. In 1857, German physicist and glassblower Heinrich Geissler sucked even more air out with a pump, to a pressure of around 10−3 atm and found that, instead of an arc
9.
Alternating current
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Alternating current, is an electric current which periodically reverses direction, whereas direct current flows only in one direction. A common source of DC power is a cell in a flashlight. The abbreviations AC and DC are often used to mean simply alternating and direct, the usual waveform of alternating current in most electric power circuits is a sine wave. In certain applications, different waveforms are used, such as triangular or square waves, audio and radio signals carried on electrical wires are also examples of alternating current. These types of alternating current carry information encoded onto the AC signal and these currents typically alternate at higher frequencies than those used in power transmission. Electrical energy is distributed as alternating current because AC voltage may be increased or decreased with a transformer, use of a higher voltage leads to significantly more efficient transmission of power. The power losses in a conductor are a product of the square of the current and this means that when transmitting a fixed power on a given wire, if the current is halved, the power loss will be four times less. Power is often transmitted at hundreds of kilovolts, and transformed to 100–240 volts for domestic use, high voltages have disadvantages, such as the increased insulation required, and generally increased difficulty in their safe handling. In a power plant, energy is generated at a convenient voltage for the design of a generator, near the loads, the transmission voltage is stepped down to the voltages used by equipment. Consumer voltages vary somewhat depending on the country and size of load, the voltage delivered to equipment such as lighting and motor loads is standardized, with an allowable range of voltage over which equipment is expected to operate. Standard power utilization voltages and percentage tolerance vary in the different mains power systems found in the world, high-voltage direct-current electric power transmission systems have become more viable as technology has provided efficient means of changing the voltage of DC power. HVDC systems, however, tend to be expensive and less efficient over shorter distances than transformers. Three-phase electrical generation is very common, the simplest way is to use three separate coils in the generator stator, physically offset by an angle of 120° to each other. Three current waveforms are produced that are equal in magnitude and 120° out of phase to each other, if coils are added opposite to these, they generate the same phases with reverse polarity and so can be simply wired together. In practice, higher pole orders are commonly used, for example, a 12-pole machine would have 36 coils. The advantage is that lower rotational speeds can be used to generate the same frequency, for example, a 2-pole machine running at 3600 rpm and a 12-pole machine running at 600 rpm produce the same frequency, the lower speed is preferable for larger machines. If the load on a system is balanced equally among the phases. Even in the worst-case unbalanced load, the current will not exceed the highest of the phase currents
10.
Electric current
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An electric current is a flow of electric charge. In electric circuits this charge is carried by moving electrons in a wire. It can also be carried by ions in an electrolyte, or by both ions and electrons such as in an ionised gas. The SI unit for measuring a current is the ampere. Electric current is measured using a device called an ammeter, electric currents cause Joule heating, which creates light in incandescent light bulbs. They also create magnetic fields, which are used in motors, inductors and generators, the particles that carry the charge in an electric current are called charge carriers. In metals, one or more electrons from each atom are loosely bound to the atom and these conduction electrons are the charge carriers in metal conductors. The conventional symbol for current is I, which originates from the French phrase intensité de courant, current intensity is often referred to simply as current. The I symbol was used by André-Marie Ampère, after whom the unit of current is named, in formulating the eponymous Ampères force law. The notation travelled from France to Great Britain, where it became standard, in a conductive material, the moving charged particles which constitute the electric current are called charge carriers. In other materials, notably the semiconductors, the carriers can be positive or negative. Positive and negative charge carriers may even be present at the same time, a flow of positive charges gives the same electric current, and has the same effect in a circuit, as an equal flow of negative charges in the opposite direction. Since current can be the flow of positive or negative charges. The direction of current is arbitrarily defined as the same direction as positive charges flow. This is called the direction of current I. If the current flows in the direction, the variable I has a negative value. When analyzing electrical circuits, the direction of current through a specific circuit element is usually unknown. Consequently, the directions of currents are often assigned arbitrarily
11.
Voltage
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Voltage, electric potential difference, electric pressure or electric tension is the difference in electric potential energy between two points per unit electric charge. The voltage between two points is equal to the work done per unit of charge against an electric field to move the test charge between two points. This is measured in units of volts, voltage can be caused by static electric fields, by electric current through a magnetic field, by time-varying magnetic fields, or some combination of these three. A voltmeter can be used to measure the voltage between two points in a system, often a reference potential such as the ground of the system is used as one of the points. A voltage may represent either a source of energy or lost, used, given two points in space, x A and x B, voltage is the difference in electric potential between those two points. Electric potential must be distinguished from electric energy by noting that the potential is a per-unit-charge quantity. Like mechanical potential energy, the zero of electric potential can be chosen at any point, so the difference in potential, i. e. the voltage, is the quantity which is physically meaningful. The voltage between point A to point B is equal to the work which would have to be done, per unit charge, against or by the electric field to move the charge from A to B. The voltage between the two ends of a path is the energy required to move a small electric charge along that path. Mathematically this is expressed as the integral of the electric field. In the general case, both an electric field and a dynamic electromagnetic field must be included in determining the voltage between two points. Historically this quantity has also called tension and pressure. Pressure is now obsolete but tension is used, for example within the phrase high tension which is commonly used in thermionic valve based electronics. Voltage is defined so that negatively charged objects are pulled towards higher voltages, therefore, the conventional current in a wire or resistor always flows from higher voltage to lower voltage. Current can flow from lower voltage to higher voltage, but only when a source of energy is present to push it against the electric field. This is the case within any electric power source, for example, inside a battery, chemical reactions provide the energy needed for ion current to flow from the negative to the positive terminal. The electric field is not the only factor determining charge flow in a material, the electric potential of a material is not even a well defined quantity, since it varies on the subatomic scale. A more convenient definition of voltage can be found instead in the concept of Fermi level, in this case the voltage between two bodies is the thermodynamic work required to move a unit of charge between them
12.
Rectifier
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A rectifier is an electrical device that converts alternating current, which periodically reverses direction, to direct current, which flows in only one direction. The process is known as rectification, historically, even synchronous electromechanical switches and motors have been used. Early radio receivers, called crystal radios, used a cats whisker of fine wire pressing on a crystal of galena to serve as a rectifier or crystal detector. Rectifiers have many uses, but are found serving as components of DC power supplies. Rectification may serve in other than to generate direct current for use as a source of power. As noted, detectors of radio signals serve as rectifiers, in gas heating systems flame rectification is used to detect presence of a flame. Because of the nature of the input AC sine wave. Many applications of rectifiers, such as supplies for radio, television and computer equipment. In these applications the output of the rectifier is smoothed by a filter to produce a steady current. More complex circuitry that performs the function, converting DC to AC, is called an inverter. Before the development of semiconductor rectifiers, vacuum tube thermionic diodes. With the introduction of electronics, vacuum tube rectifiers became obsolete. For power rectification from very low to high current, semiconductor diodes of various types are widely used. Other devices that have control electrodes as well as acting as unidirectional current valves are used more than simple rectification is required—e. g. Where variable output voltage is needed, high-power rectifiers, such as those used in high-voltage direct current power transmission, employ silicon semiconductor devices of various types. These are thyristors or other controlled switching solid-state switches, which function as diodes to pass current in only one direction. Rectifier circuits may be single-phase or multi-phase, most low power rectifiers for domestic equipment are single-phase, but three-phase rectification is very important for industrial applications and for the transmission of energy as DC. Because only one half of the input waveform reaches the output, half-wave rectification requires a single diode in a single-phase supply, or three in a three-phase supply
13.
Electronics
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Electronics is the science of controlling electrical energy electrically, in which the electrons have a fundamental role. Commonly, electronic devices contain circuitry consisting primarily or exclusively of active semiconductors supplemented with passive elements, the science of electronics is also considered to be a branch of physics and electrical engineering. The ability of electronic devices to act as switches makes digital information processing possible, until 1950 this field was called radio technology because its principal application was the design and theory of radio transmitters, receivers, and vacuum tubes. Today, most electronic devices use semiconductor components to perform electron control and this article focuses on engineering aspects of electronics. Components are generally intended to be connected together, usually by being soldered to a circuit board. Components may be packaged singly, or in more complex groups as integrated circuits, some common electronic components are capacitors, inductors, resistors, diodes, transistors, etc. Components are often categorized as active or passive, vacuum tubes were among the earliest electronic components. They were almost solely responsible for the revolution of the first half of the Twentieth Century. They took electronics from parlor tricks and gave us radio, television, phonographs, radar, long distance telephony and they played a leading role in the field of microwave and high power transmission as well as television receivers until the middle of the 1980s. Since that time, solid state devices have all but completely taken over, vacuum tubes are still used in some specialist applications such as high power RF amplifiers, cathode ray tubes, specialist audio equipment, guitar amplifiers and some microwave devices. The 608 contained more than 3,000 germanium transistors, thomas J. Watson Jr. ordered all future IBM products to use transistors in their design. From that time on transistors were almost exclusively used for computer logic, circuits and components can be divided into two groups, analog and digital. A particular device may consist of circuitry that has one or the other or a mix of the two types, most analog electronic appliances, such as radio receivers, are constructed from combinations of a few types of basic circuits. Analog circuits use a range of voltage or current as opposed to discrete levels as in digital circuits. The number of different analog circuits so far devised is huge, especially because a circuit can be defined as anything from a single component, analog circuits are sometimes called linear circuits although many non-linear effects are used in analog circuits such as mixers, modulators, etc. Good examples of analog circuits include vacuum tube and transistor amplifiers, one rarely finds modern circuits that are entirely analog. These days analog circuitry may use digital or even microprocessor techniques to improve performance and this type of circuit is usually called mixed signal rather than analog or digital. Sometimes it may be difficult to differentiate between analog and digital circuits as they have elements of both linear and non-linear operation, an example is the comparator which takes in a continuous range of voltage but only outputs one of two levels as in a digital circuit
14.
Power inverter
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A power inverter, or inverter, is an electronic device or circuitry that changes direct current to alternating current. The input voltage, output voltage and frequency, and overall power handling depend on the design of the device or circuitry. The inverter does not produce any power, the power is provided by the DC source, a power inverter can be entirely electronic or may be a combination of mechanical effects and electronic circuitry. Static inverters do not use moving parts in the conversion process, a typical power inverter device or circuit requires a relatively stable DC power source capable of supplying enough current for the intended power demands of the system. The input voltage depends on the design and purpose of the inverter, examples include,12 VDC, for smaller consumer and commercial inverters that typically run from a rechargeable 12 V lead acid battery or automotive electrical outlet. 24,36 and 48 VDC, which are standards for home energy systems. 200 to 400 VDC, when power is from solar panels. 300 to 450 VDC, when power is from electric vehicle battery packs in vehicle-to-grid systems, hundreds of thousands of volts, where the inverter is part of a high-voltage direct current power transmission system. An inverter can produce a wave, modified sine wave, pulsed sine wave. The two dominant commercialized waveform types of inverters as of 2007 are modified sine wave and sine wave, the second method converts DC to AC at battery level and uses a line-frequency transformer to create the output voltage. This is one of the simplest waveforms an inverter design can produce and is best suited to low-sensitivity applications such as lighting and heating, square wave output can produce humming when connected to audio equipment and is generally unsuitable for sensitive electronics. A power inverter device which produces a multiple step sinusoidal AC waveform is referred to as a sine wave inverter, to more clearly distinguish the inverters with outputs of much less distortion than the modified sine wave inverter designs, the manufacturers often use the phrase pure sine wave inverter. However, this is not critical for most electronics as they deal with the quite well. Where power inverter devices substitute for standard power, a sine wave output is desirable because many electrical products are engineered to work best with a sine wave AC power source. The standard electric utility provides a sine wave, typically with minor imperfections, switch-mode power supply devices, such as personal computers or DVD players, function on quality modified sine wave power. AC motors directly operated on non-sinusoidal power may produce extra heat, may have different speed-torque characteristics, the modified sine wave output of such an inverter is the sum of two square waves one of which is phase shifted 90 degrees relative to the other. The result is three level waveform with equal intervals of zero volts, peak positive volts, zero volts, peak negative volts, the resultant wave very roughly resembles the shape of a sine wave. Most inexpensive consumer power inverters produce a sine wave rather than a pure sine wave
15.
Aluminium
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Aluminium or aluminum is a chemical element in the boron group with symbol Al and atomic number 13. It is a silvery-white, soft, nonmagnetic, ductile metal, Aluminium metal is so chemically reactive that native specimens are rare and limited to extreme reducing environments. Instead, it is combined in over 270 different minerals. The chief ore of aluminium is bauxite, Aluminium is remarkable for the metals low density and its ability to resist corrosion through the phenomenon of passivation. Aluminium and its alloys are vital to the industry and important in transportation and structures, such as building facades. The oxides and sulfates are the most useful compounds of aluminium, despite its prevalence in the environment, no known form of life uses aluminium salts metabolically, but aluminium is well tolerated by plants and animals. Because of these salts abundance, the potential for a role for them is of continuing interest. Aluminium is a soft, durable, lightweight, ductile. It is nonmagnetic and does not easily ignite, a fresh film of aluminium serves as a good reflector of visible light and an excellent reflector of medium and far infrared radiation. The yield strength of aluminium is 7–11 MPa, while aluminium alloys have yield strengths ranging from 200 MPa to 600 MPa. Aluminium has about one-third the density and stiffness of steel and it is easily machined, cast, drawn and extruded. Aluminium atoms are arranged in a cubic structure. Aluminium has an energy of approximately 200 mJ/m2. Aluminium is a thermal and electrical conductor, having 59% the conductivity of copper. Aluminium is capable of superconductivity, with a critical temperature of 1.2 kelvin. Aluminium is the most common material for the fabrication of superconducting qubits, the strongest aluminium alloys are less corrosion resistant due to galvanic reactions with alloyed copper. This corrosion resistance is reduced by aqueous salts, particularly in the presence of dissimilar metals. In highly acidic solutions, aluminium reacts with water to form hydrogen, primarily because it is corroded by dissolved chlorides, such as common sodium chloride, household plumbing is never made from aluminium
16.
Electrochemistry
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These reactions involve electric charges moving between electrodes and an electrolyte. Thus electrochemistry deals with the interaction between electrical energy and chemical change, chemical reactions where electrons are transferred directly between molecules and/or atoms are called oxidation-reduction or reactions. In general, electrochemistry describes the reactions when individual redox reactions are separate but connected by an external electric circuit. Understanding of electrical matters began in the sixteenth century, during this century, the English scientist William Gilbert spent 17 years experimenting with magnetism and, to a lesser extent, electricity. For his work on magnets, Gilbert became known as the Father of Magnetism and he discovered various methods for producing and strengthening magnets. In 1663, the German physicist Otto von Guericke created the first electric generator, the generator was made of a large sulfur ball cast inside a glass globe, mounted on a shaft. The ball was rotated by means of a crank and a spark was produced when a pad was rubbed against the ball as it rotated. The globe could be removed and used as source for experiments with electricity, by the mid—18th century the French chemist Charles François de Cisternay du Fay had discovered two types of static electricity, and that like charges repel each other whilst unlike charges attract. Du Fay announced that electricity consisted of two fluids, vitreous, or positive, electricity, and resinous, or negative, electricity and this was the two-fluid theory of electricity, which was to be opposed by Benjamin Franklins one-fluid theory later in the century. Galvani refuted this by obtaining muscular action with two pieces of the same material, in 1800, William Nicholson and Johann Wilhelm Ritter succeeded in decomposing water into hydrogen and oxygen by electrolysis. Soon thereafter Ritter discovered the process of electroplating and he also observed that the amount of metal deposited and the amount of oxygen produced during an electrolytic process depended on the distance between the electrodes. By 1801, Ritter observed thermoelectric currents and anticipated the discovery of thermoelectricity by Thomas Johann Seebeck, by the 1810s, William Hyde Wollaston made improvements to the galvanic cell. This work led directly to the isolation of sodium and potassium from their compounds, andré-Marie Ampère quickly repeated Ørsteds experiment, and formulated them mathematically. In 1821, Estonian-German physicist Thomas Johann Seebeck demonstrated the potential in the juncture points of two dissimilar metals when there is a heat difference between the joints. In 1827, the German scientist Georg Ohm expressed his law in this famous book Die galvanische Kette, in 1832, Michael Faradays experiments led him to state his two laws of electrochemistry. In 1836, John Daniell invented a primary cell which solved the problem of polarization by eliminating hydrogen gas generation at the positive electrode, later results revealed that alloying the amalgamated zinc with mercury would produce a higher voltage. William Grove produced the first fuel cell in 1839, in 1846, Wilhelm Weber developed the electrodynamometer. In 1868, Georges Leclanché patented a new cell which became the forerunner to the worlds first widely used battery
17.
Railway electrification system
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A railway electrification system supplies electric power to railway trains and trams without an on-board prime mover or local fuel supply. Electrification has many advantages but requires significant capital expenditure, selection of an electrification system is based on economics of energy supply, maintenance, and capital cost compared to the revenue obtained for freight and passenger traffic. Different systems are used for urban and intercity areas, some electric locomotives can switch to different supply voltages to allow flexibility in operation, Electric railways use electric locomotives to haul passengers or freight in separate cars or electric multiple units, passenger cars with their own motors. Electricity is typically generated in large and relatively efficient generating stations, transmitted to the railway network, some electric railways have their own dedicated generating stations and transmission lines but most purchase power from an electric utility. The railway usually provides its own lines, switches and transformers. Power is supplied to moving trains with a continuous conductor running along the track usually takes one of two forms. The first is a line or catenary wire suspended from poles or towers along the track or from structure or tunnel ceilings. Locomotives or multiple units pick up power from the wire with pantographs on their roofs that press a conductive strip against it with a spring or air pressure. Examples are described later in this article, the second is a third rail mounted at track level and contacted by a sliding pickup shoe. Both overhead wire and third-rail systems usually use the rails as the return conductor. In comparison to the alternative, the diesel engine, electric railways offer substantially better energy efficiency, lower emissions. Electric locomotives are usually quieter, more powerful, and more responsive and they have no local emissions, an important advantage in tunnels and urban areas. Different regions may use different supply voltages and frequencies, complicating through service, the limited clearances available under catenaries may preclude efficient double-stack container service. Possible lethal electric current due to risk of contact with high-voltage contact wires, overhead wires are safer than third rails, but they are often considered unsightly. These are independent of the system used, so that. The permissible range of voltages allowed for the voltages is as stated in standards BS EN50163. These take into account the number of trains drawing current and their distance from the substation, railways must operate at variable speeds. Until the mid 1980s this was only practical with the brush-type DC motor, since such conversion was not well developed in the late 19th century and early 20th century, most early electrified railways used DC and many still do, particularly rapid transit and trams
18.
High-voltage direct current
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A high-voltage, direct current electric power transmission system uses direct current for the bulk transmission of electrical power, in contrast with the more common alternating current systems. For long-distance transmission, HVDC systems may be expensive and suffer lower electrical losses. For underwater power cables, HVDC avoids the heavy currents required to charge and discharge the cable capacitance each cycle, for shorter distances, the higher cost of DC conversion equipment compared to an AC system may still be justified, due to other benefits of direct current links. HVDC allows power transmission between unsynchronized AC transmission systems, since the power flow through an HVDC link can be controlled independently of the phase angle between source and load, it can stabilize a network against disturbances due to rapid changes in power. HVDC also allows transfer of power grid systems running at different frequencies, such as 50 Hz and 60 Hz. This improves the stability and economy of each grid, by allowing exchange of power between incompatible networks, the modern form of HVDC transmission uses technology developed extensively in the 1930s in Sweden and in Germany. Early commercial installations included one in the Soviet Union in 1951 between Moscow and Kashira, and a 100 kV,20 MW system between Gotland and mainland Sweden in 1954. The longest HVDC link in the world is the Rio Madeira link in Brazil, the length of the DC line is 2,375 km. High voltage is used for power transmission to reduce the energy lost in the resistance of the wires. For a given quantity of power transmitted, doubling the voltage will deliver the power at only half the current. While power lost in transmission can also be reduced by increasing the size, larger conductors are heavier. High voltage cannot readily be used for lighting or motors, so transmission-level voltages must be reduced for end-use equipment, transformers are used to change the voltage levels in alternating current transmission circuits. The first long-distance transmission of power was demonstrated using direct current in 1882 at Miesbach-Munich Power Transmission. An early method of high-voltage DC transmission was developed by the Swiss engineer René Thury and this system used series-connected motor-generator sets to increase the voltage. Each set was insulated from ground and driven by insulated shafts from a prime mover. The transmission line was operated in a constant current mode, with up to 5,000 volts across each machine and this system transmitted 630 kW at 14 kV DC over a distance of 120 km. The Moutiers–Lyon system transmitted 8,600 kW of hydroelectric power a distance of 200 km and this system used eight series-connected generators with dual commutators for a total voltage of 150,000 volts between the positive and negative poles, and operated from c.1906 until 1936. Fifteen Thury systems were in operation by 1913, other Thury systems operating at up to 100 kV DC worked into the 1930s, but the rotating machinery required high maintenance and had high energy loss
19.
Electromagnetism
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Electromagnetism is a branch of physics involving the study of the electromagnetic force, a type of physical interaction that occurs between electrically charged particles. The electromagnetic force usually exhibits electromagnetic fields such as fields, magnetic fields. The other three fundamental interactions are the interaction, the weak interaction, and gravitation. The word electromagnetism is a form of two Greek terms, ἤλεκτρον, ēlektron, amber, and μαγνῆτις λίθος magnētis lithos, which means magnesian stone. The electromagnetic force plays a role in determining the internal properties of most objects encountered in daily life. Ordinary matter takes its form as a result of forces between individual atoms and molecules in matter, and is a manifestation of the electromagnetic force. Electrons are bound by the force to atomic nuclei, and their orbital shapes. The electromagnetic force governs the processes involved in chemistry, which arise from interactions between the electrons of neighboring atoms, there are numerous mathematical descriptions of the electromagnetic field. In classical electrodynamics, electric fields are described as electric potential, although electromagnetism is considered one of the four fundamental forces, at high energy the weak force and electromagnetic force are unified as a single electroweak force. In the history of the universe, during the epoch the unified force broke into the two separate forces as the universe cooled. Originally, electricity and magnetism were considered to be two separate forces, Magnetic poles attract or repel one another in a manner similar to positive and negative charges and always exist as pairs, every north pole is yoked to a south pole. An electric current inside a wire creates a corresponding magnetic field outside the wire. Its direction depends on the direction of the current in the wire. A current is induced in a loop of wire when it is moved toward or away from a field, or a magnet is moved towards or away from it. While preparing for a lecture on 21 April 1820, Hans Christian Ørsted made a surprising observation. As he was setting up his materials, he noticed a compass needle deflected away from north when the electric current from the battery he was using was switched on. At the time of discovery, Ørsted did not suggest any explanation of the phenomenon. However, three later he began more intensive investigations
20.
Electricity
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Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence of electric charge. Although initially considered a separate to magnetism, since the development of Maxwells 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, in addition, electricity is at the heart of many modern technologies. The presence of a charge, which can be either positive or negative. On the other hand, the movement of charges, which is known as electric current. When a charge is placed in a location with non-zero electric field, the magnitude of this force is given by Coulombs Law. Thus, if that charge were to move, the field would be doing work on the electric charge. Electrical phenomena have been studied since antiquity, though progress in theoretical understanding remained slow until the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Even then, practical applications for electricity were few, and it would not be until the nineteenth century that engineers were able to put it to industrial and residential use. The rapid expansion in electrical technology at this time transformed industry, electricitys 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, long before any knowledge of electricity existed, people were aware of shocks from electric fish. Ancient Egyptian texts dating from 2750 BCE referred to these fish as the Thunderer of the Nile, Electric fish were again reported millennia later by ancient Greek, Roman and Arabic naturalists and physicians. Patients suffering from such as gout or headache were directed to touch electric fish in the hope that the powerful jolt might cure them. Ancient cultures around the Mediterranean knew that certain objects, such as rods of amber, Thales was incorrect in believing the attraction was due to a magnetic effect, but later science would prove a link between magnetism and electricity. He coined the New Latin word electricus to refer to the property of attracting small objects after being rubbed and this association gave rise to the English words electric and electricity, which made their first appearance in print in Thomas Brownes Pseudodoxia Epidemica of 1646. Further work was conducted by Otto von Guericke, Robert Boyle, Stephen Gray, in the 18th century, Benjamin Franklin conducted extensive research in electricity, selling his possessions to fund his work. In June 1752 he is reputed to have attached a key to the bottom of a dampened kite string. A succession of jumping from the key to the back of his hand showed that lightning was indeed electrical in nature
21.
Magnetism
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Magnetism is a class of physical phenomena that are mediated by magnetic fields. Electric currents and the moments of elementary particles give rise to a magnetic field. The most familiar effects occur in materials, which are strongly attracted by magnetic fields and can be magnetized to become permanent magnets. Only a few substances are ferromagnetic, the most common ones are iron, nickel and cobalt, the prefix ferro- refers to iron, because permanent magnetism was first observed in lodestone, a form of natural iron ore called magnetite, Fe3O4. The magnetic state of a material depends on temperature and other such as pressure. A material may exhibit more than one form of magnetism as these variables change, magnetism was first discovered in the ancient world, when people noticed that lodestones, naturally magnetized pieces of the mineral magnetite, could attract iron. The word magnet comes from the Greek term for lodestone, magnítis líthos, in ancient Greece, Aristotle attributed the first of what could be called a scientific discussion of magnetism to the philosopher Thales of Miletus, who lived from about 625 BC to about 545 BC. Around the same time, in ancient India, the Indian surgeon Sushruta was the first to use of the magnet for surgical purposes. In ancient China, the earliest literary reference to magnetism lies in a 4th-century BC book named after its author, the 2nd-century BC annals, Lüshi Chunqiu, also notes, The lodestone makes iron approach, or it attracts it. The earliest mention of the attraction of a needle is in a 1st-century work Lunheng, by the 12th century the Chinese were known to use the lodestone compass for navigation. They sculpted a directional spoon from lodestone in such a way that the handle of the spoon always pointed south, alexander Neckam, by 1187, was the first in Europe to describe the compass and its use for navigation. In 1269, Peter Peregrinus de Maricourt wrote the Epistola de magnete, in 1282, the properties of magnets and the dry compass were discussed by Al-Ashraf, a Yemeni physicist, astronomer, and geographer. In 1600, William Gilbert published his De Magnete, Magneticisque Corporibus, in this work he describes many of his experiments with his model earth called the terrella. From his experiments, he concluded that the Earth was itself magnetic and this landmark experiment is known as Ørsteds Experiment. James Clerk Maxwell synthesized and expanded these insights into Maxwells equations, unifying electricity, magnetism, in 1905, Einstein used these laws in motivating his theory of special relativity, requiring that the laws held true in all inertial reference frames. Magnetism, at its root, arises from two sources, Electric current, Spin magnetic moments of elementary particles. The magnetic moments of the nuclei of atoms are thousands of times smaller than the electrons magnetic moments. Nuclear magnetic moments are very important in other contexts, particularly in nuclear magnetic resonance
22.
Electrostatics
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Electrostatics is a branch of physics that deals with the phenomena and properties of stationary or slow-moving electric charges. Since classical physics, it has known that some materials such as amber attract lightweight particles after rubbing. The Greek word for amber, ήλεκτρον, or electron, was the source of the word electricity, Electrostatic phenomena arise from the forces that electric charges exert on each other. Such forces are described by Coulombs law, Electrostatics involves the buildup of charge on the surface of objects due to contact with other surfaces. This is because the charges that transfer are trapped there for a long enough for their effects to be observed. We begin with the magnitude of the force between two point charges q and Q. It is convenient to one of these charges, q, as a test charge. As we develop the theory, more source charges will be added.854187817 ×10 −12 C2 N −1 m −2, the SI units of ε0 are equivalently A2s4 kg−1m−3 or C2N−1m−2 or F m−1. Coulombs constant is, k e ≈14 π ε0 ≈8.987551787 ×109 N m 2 C −2. A single proton has a charge of e, and the electron has a charge of −e and these physical constants are currently defined so that ε0 and k0 are exactly defined, and e is a measured quantity. Electric field lines are useful for visualizing the electric field, field lines begin on positive charge and terminate on negative charge. Electric field lines are parallel to the direction of the field. The electric field, E →, is a field that can be defined everywhere. It is convenient to place a hypothetical test charge at a point, by Coulombs Law, this test charge will experience a force that can be used to define the electric field as follow F → = q E →. For a single point charge at the origin, the magnitude of electric field is E = k e Q / R2. The fact that the force can be calculated by summing all the contributions due to individual source particles is an example of the superposition principle. If the charge is distributed over a surface or along a line, the Divergence Theorem allows Gausss Law to be written in differential form, ∇ → ⋅ E → = ρ ε0. Where ∇ → ⋅ is the divergence operator, the definition of electrostatic potential, combined with the differential form of Gausss law, provides a relationship between the potential Φ and the charge density ρ, ∇2 ϕ = − ρ ε0
23.
Static electricity
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Static electricity is an imbalance of electric charges within or on the surface of a material. The charge remains until it is able to move away by means of a current or electrical discharge. Static electricity is named in contrast with current electricity, which flows through wires or other conductors, a static electric charge can be created whenever two surfaces contact and separate, and at least one of the surfaces has a high resistance to electric current. The familiar phenomenon of a static shock–more specifically, an electrostatic discharge–is caused by the neutralization of charge, materials are made of atoms that are normally electrically neutral because they contain equal numbers of positive charges and negative charges. The phenomenon of static electricity requires a separation of positive and negative charges, when two materials are in contact, electrons may move from one material to the other, which leaves an excess of positive charge on one material, and an equal negative charge on the other. When the materials are separated they retain this charge imbalance and this is known as the triboelectric effect and results in one material becoming positively charged and the other negatively charged. The polarity and strength of the charge on a material once they are separated depends on their positions in the triboelectric series. The triboelectric effect is the cause of static electricity as observed in everyday life. Contact-induced charge separation causes your hair to stand up and causes static cling, pressure-induced charge separation Applied mechanical stress generates a separation of charge in certain types of crystals and ceramics molecules. Heat-induced charge separation Heating generates a separation of charge in the atoms or molecules of certain materials, all pyroelectric materials are also piezoelectric. The atomic or molecular properties of heat and pressure response are closely related, charge-induced charge separation A charged object brought close to an electrically neutral object causes a separation of charge within the neutral object. Charges of the same polarity are repelled and charges of the opposite polarity are attracted, as the force due to the interaction of electric charges falls off rapidly with increasing distance, the effect of the closer charges is greater and the two objects feel a force of attraction. The effect is most pronounced when the object is an electrical conductor as the charges are more free to move around. Careful grounding of part of an object with a charge separation can permanently add or remove electrons, leaving the object with a global. This process is integral to the workings of the Van de Graaff generator, removing or preventing a buildup of static charge can be as simple as opening a window or using a humidifier to increase the moisture content of the air, making the atmosphere more conductive. Air ionizers can perform the same task, fabric softeners and dryer sheets used in washing machines and clothes dryers are an example of an antistatic agent used to prevent and remove static cling. Many semiconductor devices used in electronics are particularly sensitive to static discharge, conductive antistatic bags are commonly used to protect such components. People who work on circuits that contain these devices often ground themselves with an antistatic strap
24.
Electric field
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An electric field is a vector field that associates to each point in space the Coulomb force that would be experienced per unit of electric charge, by an infinitesimal test charge at that point. Electric fields are created by electric charges and can be induced by time-varying magnetic fields, the electric field combines with the magnetic field to form the electromagnetic field. The electric field, E, at a point is defined as the force, F. A particle of charge q would be subject to a force F = q E and its SI units are newtons per coulomb or, equivalently, volts per metre, which in terms of SI base units are kg⋅m⋅s−3⋅A−1. Electric fields are caused by electric charges or varying magnetic fields, in the special case of a steady state, the Maxwell-Faraday inductive effect disappears. The resulting two equations, taken together, are equivalent to Coulombs law, written as E =14 π ε0 ∫ d r ′ ρ r − r ′ | r − r ′ |3 for a charge density ρ. Notice that ε0, the permittivity of vacuum, must be substituted if charges are considered in non-empty media, the equations of electromagnetism are best described in a continuous description. A charge q located at r 0 can be described mathematically as a charge density ρ = q δ, conversely, a charge distribution can be approximated by many small point charges. Electric fields satisfy the principle, because Maxwells equations are linear. This principle is useful to calculate the field created by point charges. Q n are stationary in space at r 1, r 2, in that case, Coulombs law fully describes the field. If a system is static, such that magnetic fields are not time-varying, then by Faradays law, in this case, one can define an electric potential, that is, a function Φ such that E = − ∇ Φ. This is analogous to the gravitational potential, Coulombs law, which describes the interaction of electric charges, F = q = q E is similar to Newtons law of universal gravitation, F = m = m g. This suggests similarities between the electric field E and the gravitational field g, or their associated potentials, mass is sometimes called gravitational charge because of that similarity. Electrostatic and gravitational forces both are central, conservative and obey an inverse-square law, a uniform field is one in which the electric field is constant at every point. It can be approximated by placing two conducting plates parallel to other and maintaining a voltage between them, it is only an approximation because of boundary effects. Assuming infinite planes, the magnitude of the electric field E is, electrodynamic fields are E-fields which do change with time, for instance when charges are in motion. The electric field cannot be described independently of the field in that case
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