Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technologies with
Speaker 1: tech stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello there, everyone,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulette.
Speaker 1: I'm the tech editor here at how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: Sitting across from me, as always, is senior writer Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: Hey there, very subdued. It's a cloudy day outside where
Speaker 1: we are at the moment that we're recording this, and
Speaker 1: I think we're both sort of mellow today. Yeah, well
Speaker 1: step it up. Also, blood loss has affected me someone
Speaker 1: the shaving incident. Yes, we we won't go into detail.
Speaker 1: We'll just the incident is good enough. The surgeons hope
Speaker 1: to reattach his scalp. Anyway, Yeah, I took just a
Speaker 1: little off the top. Nice, Okay, So I'm a I
Speaker 1: actually am feeling charged up about our podcast this afternoon.
Speaker 1: I found it shocking. You know, we're gonna do that
Speaker 1: all all podcasts that people right and complain about our
Speaker 1: overpunnings as well, they should really frankly, yes, yes, frankly,
Speaker 1: so it's a pun that no one's gonna get yet. Um,
Speaker 1: so we are tackling electronics and basic electronics. But in
Speaker 1: order to talk about electronics, you can't. You can't really
Speaker 1: just leap into it because it really makes absolutely no
Speaker 1: sense unless you have and here's another pun a grounding
Speaker 1: and electrical theory. Yes, I can't. I didn't even mean
Speaker 1: to do that. And as I was saying, and I
Speaker 1: just so, do you want to start small? Yeah, let's um,
Speaker 1: let's start electricity. Start small. Yeah, we're electricity all has
Speaker 1: to do with the movements of a particular subatomic particle
Speaker 1: that would be the electron. Right, do you see a
Speaker 1: pattern here with electricity, electron onyx electrons? Yes, yes, I do,
Speaker 1: not to be negative or anything. Alright, So see the
Speaker 1: the nucleus of an atom is made up of protons
Speaker 1: and neutrons, and you know, revolving around that are the
Speaker 1: electrons in those outer shells, although revolving is probably uh
Speaker 1: not terribly accurate, zipping around. Okay, we'll go with that,
Speaker 1: zipping around because they're not necessarily any circular, right, They're
Speaker 1: actually pretty erratic and and funky. The more we know
Speaker 1: about electronics, or sorry, not electronics, but the more we
Speaker 1: know about atomic behavior, the more bizarre, it appears to me.
Speaker 1: It seems like as we as we get gain more information,
Speaker 1: it becomes harder and harder for me to get a
Speaker 1: grip on it. But in general, yes, the electrons are
Speaker 1: the negatively charged particles that orbit around the nucleus of
Speaker 1: an atom and some you know, it all depends on
Speaker 1: what what kind of material you're talking about. I mean,
Speaker 1: different materials have different number of electrons orbiting them. Um.
Speaker 1: Some of have what we often call free electrons and
Speaker 1: some do not. You can tell the ones that do
Speaker 1: because they have a sign outside the sets free electrons.
Speaker 1: There's a big arrow and the guys like twirling it
Speaker 1: every now and then, throwing it up in the air.
Speaker 1: And no, that's not what that means. Um. But but
Speaker 1: materials that have free electrons tend to be able to
Speaker 1: pass them along pretty easily. And so those are what
Speaker 1: we call conductors. They they are able to conduct the
Speaker 1: flow of electrons. Uh. And then you have um, other
Speaker 1: elements that are not that that. You know, they pretty
Speaker 1: much have their electrons locked up. They don't have any free,
Speaker 1: real free electrons in their their electron shell. Um. Those
Speaker 1: are not good conductors. They're not so they're they're actually
Speaker 1: insulators where it actually it resists the flow of electrons.
Speaker 1: So using these different materials you can create a pathway
Speaker 1: for electrons to flow through UH. And so that that's
Speaker 1: the very basis of electronics. Let's talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about some of the terms you're gonna run into when
Speaker 1: you whenever you chat about electronics. UM, let's talk about
Speaker 1: current and let's also talk about one of the UH,
Speaker 1: the great thinkers in American history who influenced tons and
Speaker 1: tons of different UH ideas and political movements, not and
Speaker 1: and just inventions in general. I'm of course talking about
Speaker 1: Samuel Adams, the beer maker. No, I'm sorry, Benjamin Franklin,
Speaker 1: Benjamin Franklin. I was just thinking of the inventor who
Speaker 1: was most important to me. I'm just waiting for the
Speaker 1: listener mail to come in on that one. Hey, I
Speaker 1: bet our listeners appreciate Samuel Adams like I do. Um.
Speaker 1: Actually I probably appreciate him more, but the so so
Speaker 1: Benji as I like to call him, or Frankie Baby.
Speaker 1: Sometimes depending on how much how often we've been over
Speaker 1: to sam Adams, did I end up on stuff you
Speaker 1: should know? So, Hey, Chuck, get a load of this guy,
Speaker 1: you know, um so, so Benjamin Franklin, he he observed this, uh,
Speaker 1: this phenomenon, and he came up with the concept of current. Now,
Speaker 1: when Franklin was thinking about this, this phenomenon, he came
Speaker 1: to the conclusion that current was a flow of positive
Speaker 1: particles moving across the pathway when across a charge differential.
Speaker 1: Really okay, so he thought of current as the flow
Speaker 1: of positive to negative Now we know that current is
Speaker 1: caused by the flow of electrons, which are negatively charged particles.
Speaker 1: So even though current goes positive to negative, the electron
Speaker 1: flow is actually negative to positive. So, in other words,
Speaker 1: when you talk about current, it's the opposite direction of
Speaker 1: electron flow, which is incredibly confusing for people who happened
Speaker 1: to be English majors that would be USA. So so,
Speaker 1: first of all, get that, let that sink in. Current
Speaker 1: is essentially that you're talking about electron flow, but it's
Speaker 1: moving in the opposite direction of electron flow. Because Benjamin
Speaker 1: Franklin was a dufus about this. Well, you know, he
Speaker 1: was what you might call a pioneer in the field.
Speaker 1: I'd call him the Tiger Woods of his day, would
Speaker 1: you really, yes, yes, I'm not gonna go any further
Speaker 1: with um wow. Oh no, no, no, no, we're still
Speaker 1: We're still current. We are current. And actually for current
Speaker 1: to flow, as you mentioned earlier, you need a pathway. Generally,
Speaker 1: you're gonna need it to be a complete pathway also
Speaker 1: known as a circuit. If there's a break in that circuit,
Speaker 1: then the electrons are not going to flow. Um. Which
Speaker 1: is important. Yeah, not only because it's important to know
Speaker 1: to prevent electrocuting yourself, it's also important to know if
Speaker 1: you're actually going to make something that I'm volves the
Speaker 1: flow of electricity, and it also also tells you another
Speaker 1: very basic thing that we'll get into later on, probably
Speaker 1: not in this podcast, but maybe in a subsequent one. Switches,
Speaker 1: which are essentially manufactured breaks in a circuit. Yes, you can.
Speaker 1: You can create a break in a circuit so that
Speaker 1: you control whether or not electrons are flowing through that
Speaker 1: particular circuit at any given time. When when the circuit,
Speaker 1: when the switches closed, the electrons can flow through, and
Speaker 1: when it's open then they can't. You know, that part
Speaker 1: of electricity is actually pretty simple. Yeah, it's when you
Speaker 1: start getting into some of the other concepts that it
Speaker 1: starts getting complicated. First of all, when we're talking about current,
Speaker 1: we're talking, uh, we measure that in a ampiers, also
Speaker 1: known as amps, although because one ampier is actually pretty
Speaker 1: darn big, we usually talk about milla amps. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: are a lot of There are a lot of different
Speaker 1: terms that are used to measure electricity in different capacities. Sorry, um,
Speaker 1: and their name for a number of different people. Um,
Speaker 1: and piers are one watts or another. Of course, what
Speaker 1: electricity is you know, measured in watts overall, but current
Speaker 1: is measured in ampiers, right and then uh, so you'll
Speaker 1: hear other terms as well, so you know current? What
Speaker 1: about voltage? Voltage? Voltage is a little confusing, um for
Speaker 1: for someone who isn't terribly familiar with electrical fields and
Speaker 1: uh and the like. Voltage is an electrical force that
Speaker 1: exists between two charge distributions, and we measure it in volts. There.
Speaker 1: That's surprising, right, So what are we talking about when
Speaker 1: we say an electrical force that exists between two charge distributions?
Speaker 1: Does that actually mean? Okay, so think of electrical charges
Speaker 1: the same and in the same general sense as we
Speaker 1: talk about magnets, because, as it turns out, electricity and
Speaker 1: magnetism have a really strong relationship with one another. Um
Speaker 1: one can induce the other. In fact, that's true, and
Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, that's very important to the
Speaker 1: production of electricity. We'll get into So if you if
Speaker 1: you're familiar with magnets, you know that the two of
Speaker 1: the same kind of of poles, like north pole to
Speaker 1: north pole, repel one another, but opposite poles attract. So
Speaker 1: a north pole south pole will attract one another. So
Speaker 1: if you put the north pole of one magnet near
Speaker 1: the south pole of another magnet, and they're close enough,
Speaker 1: they will pull one another close together. The same sort
Speaker 1: of thing can be said about charge. A positive charge
Speaker 1: is attracted to a negative charge vice versa, whereas similar
Speaker 1: charges repel one another. So if you have a positive
Speaker 1: charge on one side and a negative charge on the
Speaker 1: other side, the the force between the two, that's the voltage.
Speaker 1: And you can think of it as if you have
Speaker 1: a particle, a positively charged particle that's going to move
Speaker 1: away from the positively charged field. Okay, So let's let's
Speaker 1: say you've got you the positive field on your right
Speaker 1: and the negative field on the left. Okay, Now you've
Speaker 1: got a positive particle that you are inserting between the two.
Speaker 1: All Right, the positive field on the right is going
Speaker 1: to push that particle because it's the same charge positive
Speaker 1: to positive. The negative field and left is going to
Speaker 1: pull that particle because it's opposite charge. Right, So the uh,
Speaker 1: the force but that it takes to move that, that's
Speaker 1: what you're talking about with the whole voltage. That's that's
Speaker 1: the whole concept there, and that depends on a multiple factors.
Speaker 1: But uh, the other way that you can think of voltage,
Speaker 1: this is the way that we actually describe it in
Speaker 1: our article on how electricity works, which is extremely helpful.
Speaker 1: By the way, do you recommend reading it? Is if
Speaker 1: you think of current as electron flow, you can think
Speaker 1: of voltage as the pressure behind the current. So the
Speaker 1: greater the voltage, the harder it is pushing those electrons.
Speaker 1: All Right, all right, yeah, I got it. We've got
Speaker 1: another concept that we have to tackle though, because Lord knows,
Speaker 1: electronics aren't hard enough. Really, Benjamin, really, do you see
Speaker 1: what you started here? I mean, yes, granted, without this
Speaker 1: kind of knowledge, I wouldn't have a job, But seriously,
Speaker 1: this made my head hurt more than it already was.
Speaker 1: But to the incident. But his uh, but his his work,
Speaker 1: you know, his experiments held the key to all of
Speaker 1: this knowledge. Huh, go fly a height. Um. So the
Speaker 1: other thing we have to think about is resistance. So
Speaker 1: you want to talk about ohms, then yes, on the
Speaker 1: range so uh, a range of holmes. Okay, I'm sorry
Speaker 1: being silly. So resistance is another term that you're going
Speaker 1: to encounter whenever you're looking into electronics. Resistance refers to
Speaker 1: the reduction in current flow. Now, there's all materials have
Speaker 1: some sort of electrical resistance, all right, so you can
Speaker 1: think of Uh, materials with high resistance don't allow electrons
Speaker 1: to flow through very freely. With low resistance, electrons can
Speaker 1: flow very quickly. And it depends on two different elements,
Speaker 1: not just saying elements. Yere two different factors. It's so
Speaker 1: hard to talk about this without confusing things. Two different factors.
Speaker 1: One is the kind of material you're talking about, so
Speaker 1: like things like copper, copper has is good it's very
Speaker 1: very good conductor, right, Um. But also the diameter of
Speaker 1: the pathway. So in other words, a wire that is
Speaker 1: thick has a lower resistance than a and wire. And uh,
Speaker 1: this is important because so if if you think of
Speaker 1: again we're talking about the the analogy of of if
Speaker 1: vault is the pressure behind the current. Resistance kind of
Speaker 1: talks about how big are the pipes that will allow
Speaker 1: the current to go through. So if the pipes are
Speaker 1: very large, then the current flows pretty easily, there's not
Speaker 1: a lot of pressure there. If the pipes are very narrow,
Speaker 1: there's much more pressure. Uh. And in the case of electronics,
Speaker 1: pressure pretty much goes too comes around as a heat.
Speaker 1: So let's say that you have a very very thin
Speaker 1: wire and you're trying to push a high voltage current
Speaker 1: through UM, it's gonna heat up really quickly. In fact,
Speaker 1: if your voltage is too high UM and the current
Speaker 1: is if it's if it's just too much for that
Speaker 1: that wire to whole handle, it'll melt. So you need
Speaker 1: to have a heavier gauge wire that case UM or
Speaker 1: actually a lower gauge wire. Because that's the other thing
Speaker 1: that's confusing with electronics. Things that you think, okay, more
Speaker 1: means means that it's gonna be bigger, not always as
Speaker 1: you as your gauge gets larger in a wire, the
Speaker 1: wire it's the diameter actually gets smaller, so like a
Speaker 1: twelve gauge wire is actually, um, you know, it's actually
Speaker 1: smaller than a ten gage wire. I actually didn't know
Speaker 1: that part. You didn't know that that part I didn't get.
Speaker 1: So that'll that'll bite you if you try and build
Speaker 1: a circuit and you're like, yeah, ten gauge twelve gauge,
Speaker 1: what's the difference. I generally pay other people to do
Speaker 1: it for me. Yeah. I put a nice plastic box.
Speaker 1: You can do stuff with it, exactly. Unfortunately, I pay
Speaker 1: quite a bit of money in order for my my
Speaker 1: circuits to be built within whatever device I already want.
Speaker 1: But I have to say it's it's kind of a
Speaker 1: it's sort of a nice to refresh this because is
Speaker 1: the kind of thing that you learn in junior higher
Speaker 1: middle school shop class and then immediately forget. Actually it
Speaker 1: was physics class from me, I think, where we had
Speaker 1: to build um basic circuits. So, uh, you mentioned ohm
Speaker 1: resistance is measured in ohms. M oh came up with
Speaker 1: this crazy law which we call law, which is that
Speaker 1: voltage equals current times resistance, and of course you can
Speaker 1: move that around, you know, just basic algebra. So current
Speaker 1: wood equal voltage divided by resistance that kind of thing. Um.
Speaker 1: And that's just one of those basic laws that a
Speaker 1: lot of electronics. You know, you if you're if you're
Speaker 1: going to be really schooled in it, you have to
Speaker 1: know Ohm's law. Well that this is ay it obey
Speaker 1: the law. Um. Yea. This is the kind of thing
Speaker 1: that I mean, this is it's it's kind of dry
Speaker 1: in some ways because it's very uh technical. But the
Speaker 1: thing is the combination of all the things that we
Speaker 1: have already talked about on this podcast is the basis
Speaker 1: around what we do with our electronics. And we know
Speaker 1: the kinds of materials that conduct electricity, the kind of
Speaker 1: materials that can you know, prohibit the flow of electricity,
Speaker 1: and the kinds of materials that slow it down. Um.
Speaker 1: And using those things, you can you know, choose the
Speaker 1: right the materials to build your electronics out of, and
Speaker 1: you can get a grip on the flow of electricity
Speaker 1: and and monitor it. So it's you know, manipulative, manipulative
Speaker 1: you can mess with it there you go. So so
Speaker 1: that actually that's that raises a good point though, I
Speaker 1: mean we're talking about here, we are talking about current
Speaker 1: voltage and resistance. Um, well, how does that matter to electronics. Well,
Speaker 1: what what matters is that why would you you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, why would you build these paths for electrons
Speaker 1: in the first place. It's because the electron flow can
Speaker 1: actually produce work. Now, in the case of analog electronics,
Speaker 1: we're talking about it generating power for things like an
Speaker 1: electric motor or possibly powering a light bulb by sending
Speaker 1: electrons through the filament um. But uh, in which case
Speaker 1: you give off photons. See now it's getting really complicated.
Speaker 1: Pretty soon. We're gonna go into quantum mechanics light energy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's that's with analog electronics, but you also have
Speaker 1: the digital electronics. Now, digital electronics is a little bit different.
Speaker 1: What you're doing is, instead of of producing work the
Speaker 1: in the traditional sense, you are doing things like creating
Speaker 1: devices that can count, that can that can execute certain commands,
Speaker 1: can that can uh perform calculations um based upon the
Speaker 1: electron flow that goes through them. And that's a little
Speaker 1: more difficult to to to wrap your head around than
Speaker 1: the very basic analog electronics. But I mean that's the
Speaker 1: that's why you would want to build a circuit in
Speaker 1: the first places, because you can, you know, by harnessing
Speaker 1: electrons you can do work. It's pretty incredible stuff really
Speaker 1: when you think about it. I mean, electrons are are
Speaker 1: subatomic particles. They're so tiny that you know, you can't
Speaker 1: see them with even the most powerful light microscope. So yeah,
Speaker 1: at the same time, there empowering our cities and our
Speaker 1: transportation in our computers, and ton't they. So there are
Speaker 1: a couple of other concepts I think we should probably
Speaker 1: touch on briefly before before we call it a wrap
Speaker 1: on on just the theory part electronics. One is induction,
Speaker 1: which we were referenced earlier. Yes, you are now fully
Speaker 1: admitted into the Society of Electrons. No, there's no tattooing
Speaker 1: or brand. There's all the neutrons. They are the biggest bullies.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you. You'd think that they wouldn't be
Speaker 1: what would be neutral and all I was gonna say,
Speaker 1: they've always seemed rather impartial to me, that kind of
Speaker 1: you would think they'd be boring, But no, those guys
Speaker 1: turn on you in a heartbeat. So uh, induction. Induction
Speaker 1: is going back to what I was talking about with
Speaker 1: the whole relationship between electricity and magnetism, and we've talked
Speaker 1: about electro magnets before, actually in several podcasts. But uh,
Speaker 1: the flow of electrons can induce a magnetic field, not normally.
Speaker 1: The way you would do this is you would coil
Speaker 1: a wire an electron pathway essentially, and as electrons flow
Speaker 1: through the wire, the coil of the wire, um, they
Speaker 1: create you create a magnetic field that moves in the
Speaker 1: opposite direction of the current, which, if you remember, is
Speaker 1: in the same direction as the electron flow, right opposite
Speaker 1: direction of the current, same direction as electron flow. Because
Speaker 1: Franklin thought that there were positive particles moving around and um,
Speaker 1: he also wore bifocals. So I'm just gonna drop Franklin.
Speaker 1: He was so certain he wasn't just sure he was positive.
Speaker 1: Oh man, anyway, so okay, so anyway, the magnetic the
Speaker 1: magnetic field moves in the opposite direction of the current.
Speaker 1: And uh so that that's why if you wrap a
Speaker 1: copper wire around a a an iron nail, and you
Speaker 1: attached the ends of the copper wire to a battery,
Speaker 1: you can create on an electromagnet and pick up other
Speaker 1: little filings, yeah, or paper clip or you know whatever. Um,
Speaker 1: how yeah, that's the thing is it sort of depends
Speaker 1: on how strong in the battery you were using, if
Speaker 1: you used a bigger battery, also depends on the gauge
Speaker 1: of the wire and how many coils you wrap around
Speaker 1: the you know, how long the wire is. Um. But
Speaker 1: more electrons, yeah, bigger electromagnetic field. Yeah yeah, so do
Speaker 1: you you know there are electro magnets that are very underpowered,
Speaker 1: really you would say, like the little thing that you
Speaker 1: made with your battery, and then there are massive electromagnetics
Speaker 1: magnets that can do things like lift an entire car.
Speaker 1: You see. I knew you were going to say that,
Speaker 1: because those are the ones that I always think of
Speaker 1: as being the you know, seriously powerful electric car. So um.
Speaker 1: But here's the other thing is that a magnetic field
Speaker 1: can also induce an electronic electric current. So if you
Speaker 1: have that same kind of a coil of wire and
Speaker 1: you pass a magnetic shield so that it comes into
Speaker 1: contact with the wire, uh, that can actually create a
Speaker 1: flow of electrons within that wire, even if you didn't
Speaker 1: have it connected to any sort of power source. Um.
Speaker 1: Which we talked about a bit with the electric guitar,
Speaker 1: as I recall, because you know, as you strum and
Speaker 1: a string on electric guitar. The pickups, uh actually use
Speaker 1: electro and an electro magnetic principle, the magnetic The strumming
Speaker 1: of the string creates um the magnetic field, which in
Speaker 1: turn creates the electric electricity that goes to the amp.
Speaker 1: So pretty cool stuff. Now, the last thing I think
Speaker 1: we should probably talk about is capacitance. Okay, do you
Speaker 1: have the capacity to talk about that or shall I? Well,
Speaker 1: feeling I am going to all right, I'll talk about it. So,
Speaker 1: capacitance is when you have, uh, you have two plates
Speaker 1: separated by either space or some sort of insulating material,
Speaker 1: and they have um opposite charges. Right, so you've got
Speaker 1: one plate that's got a positive charge, one plate that's
Speaker 1: got a negative charge. And capacitance is the basis of
Speaker 1: one of the elements we'll talk about in our next
Speaker 1: electronics podcast, which is of course the capacitor. And uh,
Speaker 1: just so you know, I will probably repeat this again,
Speaker 1: repeat this again, we'll pete this for the first time
Speaker 1: in our next podcast. Uh. But the capacitors are both
Speaker 1: very useful in electronics and those are the things that
Speaker 1: can kill you, um, and particularly in large devices like
Speaker 1: television sets. Well, they're used to store electricity and release
Speaker 1: it upon demands. But they store you know, they could
Speaker 1: beat They can actually have quite a bit of juice
Speaker 1: in them. Yeah, and they they can release it very
Speaker 1: very quickly. It's not like a battery. Um, it's just
Speaker 1: sort of on. It's like all or nothing. Yeah kind of.
Speaker 1: That's that's one of the possibilities. Yes, So if you
Speaker 1: were too if you were to yeah, if you were
Speaker 1: to touch the no, no, if you were to touch
Speaker 1: the lead of a capacitor while it was fully charged,
Speaker 1: you could discharge it directly into you. And with certain
Speaker 1: devices like televisions, that means that it could kill you.
Speaker 1: And yeah, the TV does not need to be plugged
Speaker 1: in or turned on or anything for that to happen.
Speaker 1: If the capacitor is holding a charge, it will hold
Speaker 1: that charge. And if you touch it and discharge it
Speaker 1: um ouch or possibly yeah, yeah, possibly fairly well um
Speaker 1: beyond ouch. Alright, So anyway, we have pretty much covered
Speaker 1: the basics of electronic theory. Um. I think we're gonna
Speaker 1: need to go and get something to drink, like, um,
Speaker 1: something from Sam Adams possible. Well, did you uh, did
Speaker 1: you want to talk about the different kinds of current, oh,
Speaker 1: alternating versus direct, Yes, do you do you want to
Speaker 1: chat about that for a little bit. I mean, we
Speaker 1: can talk about Edison versus Tesla, well, which that would
Speaker 1: be softballing it. Well, one of the things that uh, well,
Speaker 1: I wasn't hurting if this this fell into this one
Speaker 1: or the no. No, I think we can talk about
Speaker 1: here because they're they're essentially two different types of current. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, the the very first one, the most simple,
Speaker 1: is the direct current, which you know basically goes around
Speaker 1: and around and around in the same direction and doesn't stop.
Speaker 1: Alternating current, on the other hand, uh, goes you know,
Speaker 1: switches direction at regular intervals, right, So the current, the
Speaker 1: current will go from one direction and then I'll go
Speaker 1: to the other, which of course means that the electron
Speaker 1: flow is doing the same thing, just in the opposite direction.
Speaker 1: And that's that's one of the funky things about electricity.
Speaker 1: You know, you're going, okay, wait a minute, how is
Speaker 1: it switching direction? But it actually helps move it from
Speaker 1: one place to another. And that's that's one of the
Speaker 1: things that helps us uh uh, you know, send electricity
Speaker 1: over long distances. Yeah. As it turns out, alternating current
Speaker 1: is very very useful if you want to do something
Speaker 1: like generate power at a power plant and then distributed
Speaker 1: across a wide power grid. Um, if you without without
Speaker 1: alternating current, you couldn't rely on things like transformers, which
Speaker 1: again we'll probably get into I don't even know that
Speaker 1: will necessarily get into that in the next podcast. That
Speaker 1: might be for a third one, because we're gonna go
Speaker 1: I think into the basic circuitry for the next one. Well,
Speaker 1: transformers in essence, transformers change low voltage electricity into high
Speaker 1: voltage electricity, or vice versa and vice versa. That's the
Speaker 1: thing is that it high voltage electricity travels better and
Speaker 1: that's one of those things that gives you the opportunity
Speaker 1: to send it long longer distances. But also it turns
Speaker 1: out that it will totally kill you if you if
Speaker 1: you come into contact with it. So clearly you need
Speaker 1: to have some way to trans for that high voltage
Speaker 1: into low voltage so that you can use it without
Speaker 1: frying yourself. So essentially you need one at both ends.
Speaker 1: You need to change it to high voltage, send it
Speaker 1: along the power line, then change it back into low
Speaker 1: voltage so that you can use it in your house.
Speaker 1: And we'll get into this is the basis. I think
Speaker 1: we can get into that in a future in a
Speaker 1: future podcast. Um. So, our next electronics podcast, just to
Speaker 1: give you guys a little preview, will be about the
Speaker 1: basic elements that you find in circuits and what they
Speaker 1: do and how they relate to these concepts that we've
Speaker 1: laid out in this particular episode. So look forward to that,
Speaker 1: Chris and I will look forward to recording it and
Speaker 1: approximately two minutes because through the magic of podcasts, you
Speaker 1: guys get a break and we don't. No, no, it's
Speaker 1: this is this is really interesting stuff. I mean, granted,
Speaker 1: I will admit I had to do a lot of
Speaker 1: reading to get back up to speed on this, because
Speaker 1: it has it's been pretty much since high school since
Speaker 1: I've actually really looked at electronics from a mechanical physics
Speaker 1: sort of perspective as opposed to just Hey, that's awesome.
Speaker 1: I want three of those, so good times. All right,
Speaker 1: And I don't have any listener mail today. Uh it's
Speaker 1: just because again, I was researching this so hard that
Speaker 1: I totally forgot to pull up listener mail, not that
Speaker 1: I have any shortage of it. Um, you guys keep
Speaker 1: on writing. They are pouring in and I appreciate them,
Speaker 1: and we have been adding topics to our list quite
Speaker 1: uh quite a bit recently. That's true. And if you
Speaker 1: if you'd like to write us and send us a
Speaker 1: note with your thoughts, please do so at tech stuff
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com. And remember we do
Speaker 1: have articles on these concepts. In fact, our article on
Speaker 1: how electricity works as written by Marshall Brain and our
Speaker 1: buddy Robert Lamb. They worked on this. Uh you know,
Speaker 1: Marshall wrote an article many years ago and Robert has
Speaker 1: been updating it and it's it's very very helpful. It's
Speaker 1: got some good illustrations, more analogies, fewer puns. So for
Speaker 1: those of you who find our puns painful, I recommend
Speaker 1: the article that's at how stuff works dot com. And
Speaker 1: Chris and I will talk to you again, probably about
Speaker 1: electronics really soon. For more on this and thousands of
Speaker 1: other topics, visit how stuff works dot com and be
Speaker 1: sure to check out the new tech stuff blog now
Speaker 1: on the how Stuff Works homepage. Brought to you by
Speaker 1: the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. It's ready, are you