WEBVTT - Selects: How Electricity Works 0:00:00.600 --> 0:00:03.400 Hey, everybody, it's Joshum. For this week's Select, I've chosen 0:00:03.440 --> 0:00:07.760 our twenty fourteen episode on electricity, and I chose it 0:00:07.800 --> 0:00:11.680 as a kind of Casey Casum esque special dedication to 0:00:11.760 --> 0:00:15.239 one of our younger listeners, Charlie Pendergrast, who wrote in 0:00:15.280 --> 0:00:18.760 with a bunch of good ideas, one of which was electricity. Well, 0:00:18.840 --> 0:00:21.079 rather than just send him a link and being boring, 0:00:21.480 --> 0:00:23.919 I thought I'd share it as a select for everybody 0:00:23.960 --> 0:00:27.920 to enjoy. So if you enjoy this select, you can 0:00:27.960 --> 0:00:30.040 thank Charlie. Thanks Charlie. 0:00:34.840 --> 0:00:41.080 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:44.280 --> 0:00:47.040 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's 0:00:47.120 --> 0:00:50.600 Charles w Chuck Bryant. Jerry's over there. Chuck's wearing his 0:00:50.680 --> 0:00:53.360 last Chance garage hat, which means that all is right 0:00:53.400 --> 0:00:55.920 with the world. Yeah, you know, if Chuck's not wearing 0:00:55.920 --> 0:00:58.040 that hat, who knows what's going on? 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:03.200 Yeah, I thought a loss of sing yeah once. Yeah, 0:01:03.400 --> 0:01:03.880 I think I. 0:01:03.880 --> 0:01:05.560 Vaguely remember that dude freaked. 0:01:06.920 --> 0:01:08.959 I was on the with Delta and everything, and I 0:01:09.000 --> 0:01:09.840 was like, oh, here it is. 0:01:10.959 --> 0:01:14.039 It's on my head your back pocket, like Bruce Springsteen. 0:01:14.120 --> 0:01:14.479 That's right. 0:01:15.720 --> 0:01:23.480 Uh, how you doing great, Chuck, Yes, let's talk about electricity, electricity, electricity. 0:01:23.760 --> 0:01:26.240 I've had the Talking Heads song in my head, which 0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:30.559 one electricity? Okay, where all these sees are little dots. 0:01:30.600 --> 0:01:32.640 I thought you're gonna say once in a lifetime. No, 0:01:32.760 --> 0:01:36.480 that's what is that called once in a lifetime? Yeah? 0:01:37.080 --> 0:01:41.319 Uh yeah, I've been singing the Schoolhouse Rock electricity song 0:01:41.400 --> 0:01:42.360 over and over in my head. 0:01:42.360 --> 0:01:46.559 What about the electric company theme song? Mmm, I haven't 0:01:46.600 --> 0:01:48.240 been singing that, but do you remember it? 0:01:48.640 --> 0:01:52.040 Yeah? That was I was electric Company over Sesame Street even. 0:01:53.120 --> 0:01:54.920 Oh yeah, I didn't think there had to be like 0:01:54.960 --> 0:01:56.840 a you know, I didn't know it was like the 0:01:56.880 --> 0:01:58.240 Stones or the Beatles, you know. 0:01:58.600 --> 0:02:01.520 No, it's uh and the correct answer there's the Who. 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:05.080 By the way, what do you mean like that? 0:02:06.440 --> 0:02:06.640 Who? 0:02:06.800 --> 0:02:07.320 Is that? Right? 0:02:07.640 --> 0:02:07.680 No? 0:02:07.800 --> 0:02:11.840 I mean yeah, I love the Who, But I'm with you. 0:02:11.880 --> 0:02:14.520 I don't see the need to rank things like that. 0:02:14.960 --> 0:02:18.360 Well, Plus, the electric Company came on after Sesame Street, 0:02:18.400 --> 0:02:18.880 I think. 0:02:18.800 --> 0:02:20.560 Yeah, it skewed slightly older. 0:02:21.160 --> 0:02:24.360 I think Sesame Street to me felt like, you know, 0:02:24.600 --> 0:02:25.720 six seven eight year olds. 0:02:25.720 --> 0:02:26.640 Electric companies were. 0:02:26.600 --> 0:02:28.840 Like eight, nine to ten, twelve, and then even younger 0:02:28.880 --> 0:02:31.600 than Sesame Street was Pinwheel if I remember correctly, and 0:02:31.760 --> 0:02:34.840 that was after your time, Okay, Pinwell was pretty cute. 0:02:35.080 --> 0:02:37.120 It was like little kids, and then Sesame Street was 0:02:37.160 --> 0:02:40.160 like little kids, and then Electric Company was like cool. 0:02:40.280 --> 0:02:43.520 Yeah, and Romper Room was kind of pre Sesame Street. 0:02:43.280 --> 0:02:46.440 Even so, was that the one with Reggedy Ann and Andy? Mmm? 0:02:47.240 --> 0:02:51.040 I don't remember. I just remember it was very immature. Yeah, 0:02:51.040 --> 0:02:51.840 it's very childish. 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:54.280 You think Raggedy Ann and Andy were in that. Well. 0:02:54.320 --> 0:02:56.560 At any rate, we've angered enough people now, I know. 0:02:57.800 --> 0:02:59.080 I have an intro for this one. 0:02:59.160 --> 0:02:59.440 Great. 0:02:59.720 --> 0:03:05.160 Okay, you ready, about thirteen point eight billion years ago, 0:03:05.880 --> 0:03:08.840 a little something called the Big Bang happened and the 0:03:08.960 --> 0:03:11.720 universe was created, so says you, So this is a 0:03:11.720 --> 0:03:14.920 lot of people. Yeah, you know, we weren't around. Nobody 0:03:14.960 --> 0:03:19.880 saw it, but it's been detected and it's strongly suspected 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:24.160 by scientists that the universe is thirteen point eight billion 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:26.680 years old and that it came from something called the 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:29.080 Big Bang, which, by the way, I would love to 0:03:29.120 --> 0:03:33.560 do an episode on. Yeah, let's do it, okay, and 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:36.720 under the auspices of the Big Bang theory, not the 0:03:36.760 --> 0:03:41.320 TV show, but the actual theory. At that moment, all 0:03:41.360 --> 0:03:44.720 of the energy in the entire universe was created. Right then, 0:03:46.040 --> 0:03:50.200 boom bam. Ever, since that point the energy has no 0:03:50.280 --> 0:03:53.240 more energy has been created and none of that energy 0:03:53.240 --> 0:03:56.760 has been destroyed. But it changes states, it changes shapes, 0:03:56.800 --> 0:04:01.000 It can be locked up in different places. It can 0:04:01.040 --> 0:04:04.120 be transferred from one place to another via some natural 0:04:04.200 --> 0:04:08.760 ways like convection, conduction, radiation, and like I said, it 0:04:08.760 --> 0:04:11.640 can be stored in stuff. It can be stored in 0:04:11.680 --> 0:04:16.200 your body. Right. Fat is potential energy that can be 0:04:16.360 --> 0:04:19.760 burned and used for energy to carry out work, which 0:04:19.800 --> 0:04:22.880 is all we're looking to do is work. We use 0:04:22.960 --> 0:04:25.560 energy to carry out work, whether it's digging a shovel 0:04:25.640 --> 0:04:28.200 or lighting a light bulb. That's what energy does. It 0:04:28.240 --> 0:04:33.839 produces work. Right, Okay, we've figured out along the way 0:04:33.960 --> 0:04:36.360 that we don't have to wait around for radiation or 0:04:36.440 --> 0:04:41.160 convection or conduction to do its thing to provide energy, 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:45.400 because we'd have a lot of waiting to do. We 0:04:45.440 --> 0:04:47.159 wouldn't be in the computer age right now if it 0:04:47.160 --> 0:04:52.799 weren't for something called electricity, which is basically how humans 0:04:52.839 --> 0:04:57.040 have figured out how to harness converting energy from one 0:04:57.040 --> 0:05:01.520 type of another and then transmitting it very long distance. Yeah, 0:05:01.560 --> 0:05:05.479 because electricity isn't a primary energy source like the sun 0:05:05.600 --> 0:05:09.440 or solar radiation, or nuclear energy or even the flow 0:05:09.480 --> 0:05:12.760 of water kinetic energy. No, it's created, yeah, it's and 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:16.320 it's a secondary energy source. It's a carrier, that's right. 0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:21.040 So electricity carries energy from one point to another. And 0:05:22.120 --> 0:05:25.760 if you understand that, you understand the very basis of 0:05:26.400 --> 0:05:27.719 what we're going to talk about today. 0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:28.520 Yeah. 0:05:28.839 --> 0:05:33.000 Like we've figured out how to generate electricity to carry 0:05:33.320 --> 0:05:35.560 energy to produce work down the line. 0:05:35.680 --> 0:05:36.120 That's right. 0:05:36.800 --> 0:05:40.320 That's my intra which is usually mechanical energy is what's 0:05:40.360 --> 0:05:42.479 produced right by a machine. 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:46.480 Yes, so think about this, like, if you capture mechanical 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:49.880 energy like water spinning a turbine, which we'll talk about, yeah, 0:05:50.480 --> 0:05:53.400 and Niagara Falls, that's not going to do anything to 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:57.320 light your light bulb two hundred miles away. 0:05:57.520 --> 0:05:58.560 No, not by itself. 0:05:58.760 --> 0:06:03.040 No, unless you connect the two, you send the work 0:06:03.240 --> 0:06:06.479 produced the energy captured in Niagara Falls down to your 0:06:06.560 --> 0:06:11.120 light bulb. And that's what we do using electricity. 0:06:10.560 --> 0:06:11.039 That's right. 0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:17.719 Yeah, it's pretty simple. Actually, it seems complicated, but it's not. No, 0:06:17.960 --> 0:06:19.560 just electrons moving around. 0:06:19.800 --> 0:06:22.560 Yeah, let's talk about electrons. Man, let's talk about the atom. 0:06:22.880 --> 0:06:25.160 Well, should we talk about the history of this stuff? Yes, 0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:31.360 let's back in the olden days. In ancient times, there 0:06:31.360 --> 0:06:36.960 were dudes messing around with energy and static electricity without 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:40.480 even knowing what they were doing. Right, they didn't understand it. 0:06:40.720 --> 0:06:42.880 That doesn't mean that they weren't playing around with. 0:06:42.800 --> 0:06:47.960 It, No, and getting zapped because they're messing with static electricity. 0:06:47.360 --> 0:06:50.360 That's right, which we'll explain all that later to But 0:06:50.400 --> 0:06:53.520 there was one dude called Dallas of Melitas. He is 0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:57.080 a philosopher in Greece and in six hundred BC he 0:06:57.200 --> 0:07:00.520 is thought to have been the first dude to around 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:06.080 with electrostatics static electricity by rubbing amber with fur, and 0:07:06.240 --> 0:07:08.520 he noticed that dust and feathers and things were attracted 0:07:08.520 --> 0:07:10.880 to it. He didn't know what the heck was going on, 0:07:11.280 --> 0:07:12.360 but he knew something. 0:07:12.200 --> 0:07:14.760 Was up right, and the amber plays a pretty big role. 0:07:14.840 --> 0:07:19.960 It's actually amber. The Latin er I'm sorry is it Greek? 0:07:20.120 --> 0:07:23.960 Greek Greek word for amber is electron with a K. 0:07:24.480 --> 0:07:24.920 Yeah. 0:07:25.240 --> 0:07:25.760 That was like. 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:27.080 The way heavy metal. 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:30.080 Yeah, you know, but that's so like our Our word 0:07:30.080 --> 0:07:33.560 electricity is derived from the Greek word for amber. From 0:07:33.640 --> 0:07:36.200 that first experiment with static electricity. 0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:38.720 Yeah, and it was actually coined by a dude named 0:07:39.480 --> 0:07:43.720 William Gilbert. He was an Englishman, a physician, and he 0:07:43.800 --> 0:07:46.200 was studying sort of the same things with static electricity 0:07:46.240 --> 0:07:50.240 that Militis was. And he was the first person to 0:07:50.240 --> 0:07:53.480 say it's electric when he saw these forces at work. 0:07:53.760 --> 0:07:57.520 With an exclamation point and his finger in the air. Yeah, 0:07:57.600 --> 0:08:00.560 and we should probably we should probably differentiate, like there's 0:08:00.560 --> 0:08:03.040 a couple of types of electricity. There's static electricity, and 0:08:03.040 --> 0:08:07.600 then there's current electricity, right, and current electricity is what 0:08:07.680 --> 0:08:12.640 we are able to generate artificially. Static electricity exists in 0:08:12.760 --> 0:08:16.560 nature just naturally. Yes, and that was the first experiments 0:08:16.560 --> 0:08:19.920 carried out. Then there's other types of current electricity like lightning. 0:08:20.400 --> 0:08:22.680 But at this time when these people are messing with 0:08:22.760 --> 0:08:27.440 electric or static electricity or saying it's electric for the 0:08:27.480 --> 0:08:32.080 first time, yeah, the concept electricity was that it was fluid. 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:35.800 Well, it was fluid. He was on the right track. 0:08:36.160 --> 0:08:37.079 Something is flowing. 0:08:37.559 --> 0:08:41.000 But they thought it was literally a fluid which they 0:08:41.000 --> 0:08:42.199 called which. 0:08:42.240 --> 0:08:43.560 In those days was called a humor. 0:08:44.200 --> 0:08:46.880 And he said it leaves what he called then an 0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:52.400 afflu vivvum effluvium, right, which is atmosphere around it. When 0:08:52.440 --> 0:08:56.320 you create this rubbing action, it removes that fluid. But 0:08:56.520 --> 0:09:00.240 it wasn't fluid. They were not dummies back then, but 0:09:00.280 --> 0:09:01.400 they were just figuring it all out. 0:09:01.440 --> 0:09:03.760 No, they weren't dummies because even Ben Franklin thought it 0:09:03.800 --> 0:09:08.120 was a fluid. It was the prevailing idea concept of electricity, 0:09:09.280 --> 0:09:12.760 and Ben Franklin and a couple of his contemporaries, including 0:09:12.760 --> 0:09:18.640 a guy named Thomas Francois Dalibard, were studying electricity big time, 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:22.880 and it was when they really investigated lightning that our 0:09:23.840 --> 0:09:28.160 understanding of current electricity started to take shape. 0:09:28.440 --> 0:09:31.720 Yeah, the old story of Ben Franklin flying his kite 0:09:32.600 --> 0:09:34.920 may or may not have happened. There are some people 0:09:34.960 --> 0:09:36.720 that think that didn't happen now. 0:09:37.200 --> 0:09:40.079 But if he didn't do it, other people did. There 0:09:40.120 --> 0:09:43.800 were guys who died carrying out that experiment. Yeah, but 0:09:44.080 --> 0:09:45.719 it was definitely carried out. I don't know if Ben 0:09:45.760 --> 0:09:46.560 Franklin did or not. 0:09:46.800 --> 0:09:49.400 Yeah, that's sort of the story that he flew the 0:09:49.440 --> 0:09:53.040 kite with the key, and some people think it either 0:09:53.080 --> 0:09:54.679 didn't go down like that or didn't go down with 0:09:54.760 --> 0:09:55.600 him at all. 0:09:56.160 --> 0:09:57.439 But it's a great story either way. 0:09:57.559 --> 0:10:01.480 Yeah, and I think he at least proposed it the experiment. 0:10:01.880 --> 0:10:02.000 Well. 0:10:02.080 --> 0:10:04.160 Yeah, and he was the first guy to say that 0:10:04.720 --> 0:10:07.520 electricity has a positive and negative charge and that it 0:10:07.520 --> 0:10:08.920 flows from positive to negative. 0:10:09.440 --> 0:10:11.240 So he's a smart guy, very smart. 0:10:11.240 --> 0:10:12.000 He's a polymn. 0:10:12.400 --> 0:10:17.120 Then there was another smart dude named Coulomb, Charles Augustin 0:10:17.200 --> 0:10:22.040 de Coulomb, and he is the one that wrote Coulomb's law. 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:26.640 And he said, charges like charges repel, opposite charges attract, 0:10:26.720 --> 0:10:29.000 and that's kind of like the basis for it all. 0:10:29.320 --> 0:10:33.199 Yeah. And the force of these charges is proportional to 0:10:33.320 --> 0:10:37.679 their product. So if you multiply the charges, they are 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:40.200 going to be very strong or canceled on another out 0:10:40.280 --> 0:10:41.440 or push one another away. 0:10:41.600 --> 0:10:41.800 Yeah. 0:10:41.840 --> 0:10:45.440 He basically said, you can now calculate this right because 0:10:45.440 --> 0:10:46.880 of my handy dandy little law. 0:10:47.000 --> 0:10:52.240 Yeah, and with a boom, he said boom, not bang. Okay, 0:10:52.280 --> 0:10:54.800 that came earlier later on. 0:10:54.920 --> 0:10:55.800 A guy named J. J. 0:10:56.040 --> 0:11:00.360 Thompson in eighteen ninety seven said at a science conference, Hey, 0:11:01.080 --> 0:11:06.640 I found something smaller than the atom. And everyone said, silly, man, 0:11:06.800 --> 0:11:10.599 atoms are invisible. You can't it even means invisible. 0:11:10.480 --> 0:11:14.040 You liar, And he said no, I promise it's there's 0:11:14.040 --> 0:11:16.400 something smaller, it's got a negative charge, and I'm going 0:11:16.480 --> 0:11:17.479 to call it a corpuscle. 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:18.520 No he didn't. 0:11:18.600 --> 0:11:22.000 Yeah, it is Latin for small bodies. And then I think, 0:11:22.160 --> 0:11:24.760 I don't know who later said let's change it to electron. 0:11:24.880 --> 0:11:26.080 Yeah, that sounds way cooler. 0:11:26.200 --> 0:11:30.199 But the discovery of the electron was basically the birth 0:11:30.400 --> 0:11:34.239 of what we know is electricity today. Yeah, the understanding 0:11:34.240 --> 0:11:35.839 of the electron is what it's all about. 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:39.440 And would you say, like eighteen ninety seven, yes, So 0:11:40.720 --> 0:11:44.040 before that time, I guess he didn't understand the electron, 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:47.400 but he understood electricity. A guy named Michael Faraday was 0:11:47.400 --> 0:11:48.760 working on the. 0:11:48.679 --> 0:11:50.400 Case stud Yeah. 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:54.680 Basically everybody's like Ben frank on electricity hand in hand. 0:11:54.960 --> 0:11:59.680 Really it's Michael Faraday, who is British, who really came 0:11:59.760 --> 0:12:04.720 to the foundation for electrifying the world. He just he 0:12:04.800 --> 0:12:08.360 created the first dynamo, which is a generator which we'll 0:12:08.360 --> 0:12:09.240 talk about. 0:12:09.280 --> 0:12:11.199 He first electric motor. 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:16.640 Yeah, yeah, he just he got electricity and he explained 0:12:16.679 --> 0:12:17.880 it to other people very well. 0:12:18.120 --> 0:12:21.720 Can you even fathom how smart these people were to 0:12:21.840 --> 0:12:25.079 be that in the dark and figuring all this subatomic 0:12:25.240 --> 0:12:25.840 stuff out. 0:12:26.160 --> 0:12:29.800 Yeah. Back then, hats off, top, Hats off to these guys. 0:12:29.559 --> 0:12:30.760 Last chance garageot off. 0:12:30.840 --> 0:12:34.720 Yeah, I'm back on, Like I have trouble understanding it now, 0:12:35.160 --> 0:12:38.680 right when it's explained through like Kids for Science website, 0:12:38.880 --> 0:12:39.160 you know. 0:12:39.360 --> 0:12:41.760 Like inventing this, figuring this stuff out with the first time. 0:12:41.800 --> 0:12:42.320 Right exactly. 0:12:42.400 --> 0:12:42.600 Yeah. 0:12:42.600 --> 0:12:45.080 And it's a pretty dangerous field to try to figure 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:46.400 out blind too, you know. 0:12:46.679 --> 0:12:49.240 Yeah, I mean more than one scientist got a shock 0:12:49.280 --> 0:12:52.320 from a Leyden jar. Oh yeah, and you can make those, dud? 0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:53.600 Did you make those in science class? 0:12:53.760 --> 0:12:53.840 No? 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:55.120 Yeah, you can make those. 0:12:55.160 --> 0:12:57.360 Well, it's we should say a leaden jar is a 0:12:57.480 --> 0:13:01.000 very primitive capacitor to use a metal rod in a jar, 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:04.080 a nail that's sunk into like some water, and it 0:13:04.120 --> 0:13:08.439 can store a charge. I think Ben Franklin's kite experiment 0:13:08.640 --> 0:13:11.160 attached the kite to or a rod or something to 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:16.520 a laden jar to store the charge too, if that happened, right, 0:13:16.840 --> 0:13:19.360 But again, he did make the proposal. It's whether or 0:13:19.400 --> 0:13:21.240 not he carried it out as it's question. 0:13:21.360 --> 0:13:23.840 All right, I guess now we can get the atoms finally. 0:13:24.559 --> 0:13:27.960 Atoms are very tiny and they make up molecules and 0:13:28.200 --> 0:13:30.200 molecules make up everything you see. 0:13:30.320 --> 0:13:32.640 Yeah, atoms are the building block of matter. That's right, 0:13:34.000 --> 0:13:38.680 an atam. Remember we're always talking about nature loves homeostasis, 0:13:38.760 --> 0:13:46.200 Oh man does it? You've got a balance that nature 0:13:46.320 --> 0:13:50.000 always seeks tries to achieve it. Same with atoms or 0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:52.800 atoms are no exception. I should say within an atom, 0:13:52.880 --> 0:13:55.920 you have a nucleus which is made up of protons 0:13:55.920 --> 0:14:01.040 and neutrons. Protons are positively charged particles, neutrons are neutral. 0:14:01.520 --> 0:14:06.079 And then orbiting that nucleus making the cool atom symbol 0:14:06.440 --> 0:14:10.720 are electrons and they're negatively charged. Right, And when you 0:14:10.840 --> 0:14:17.320 have an equal number of protons to electrons, you have 0:14:17.400 --> 0:14:19.080 a neutral atom. 0:14:19.280 --> 0:14:22.400 Yeah, there's no potential energy there. It's just in balance. 0:14:23.160 --> 0:14:26.480 And a lot of stuff is like that. A lot 0:14:26.480 --> 0:14:29.920 of stuff is in balance, some stuff is not well. 0:14:30.160 --> 0:14:33.160 Some stuff falls out of balance easier than other stuff. 0:14:33.360 --> 0:14:38.040 Well, yeah, the electrons sometimes they're super tightly bound to 0:14:38.080 --> 0:14:39.640 the atom and they don't want to leave the house. 0:14:40.160 --> 0:14:45.640 They want to stick around. Sometimes they're crazy teenagers and 0:14:45.760 --> 0:14:49.840 the slightest energy and movement makes them jump off from 0:14:49.880 --> 0:14:51.800 the atom and just say I want to go attach 0:14:51.840 --> 0:14:52.720 myself to something else. 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:56.800 We go on rum Springer. Yeah, yeah, and it depends 0:14:56.840 --> 0:15:00.640 on the material. And those types of material that have 0:15:00.800 --> 0:15:06.240 either tightly connected or loosely connected atoms either end up 0:15:06.760 --> 0:15:11.120 conducting electricity very well or don't conduct electricity very well, 0:15:11.240 --> 0:15:15.400 so they act as either electrical conductors or electrical insulators. 0:15:15.600 --> 0:15:15.840 Yeah. 0:15:15.880 --> 0:15:17.520 Like, if you pick up a stick off the ground, 0:15:18.640 --> 0:15:21.240 it's electrons like staying close to home, so it's not 0:15:21.280 --> 0:15:23.920 going to conduct electricity. If you pick up a metal rod, 0:15:24.600 --> 0:15:28.320 those electrons are crazy loose and they like to go 0:15:28.400 --> 0:15:31.440 off and do those things that teenage electrons do, and 0:15:31.600 --> 0:15:34.880 therefore it does conduct electricity. 0:15:34.400 --> 0:15:35.080 Right very well. 0:15:35.400 --> 0:15:38.200 Under normal circumstances. When you pick up that rod or 0:15:38.240 --> 0:15:41.240 you pick up that stick, the electrons are staying put 0:15:41.320 --> 0:15:44.600 no matter what. But we figured out along the way 0:15:44.760 --> 0:15:47.800 thanks to the work of all of the people, from 0:15:48.040 --> 0:15:51.560 the Greeks to Faraday, to Ben Franklin to your guy 0:15:51.640 --> 0:15:57.400 with the core puscle idea. Yeah, JJ, what's his name, Yeah, JJ, 0:15:57.520 --> 0:16:01.800 core Puzzle, I think Thompson. So thanks to the work 0:16:01.800 --> 0:16:04.320 of all of these people, we figured out how to 0:16:04.480 --> 0:16:10.920 knock electrons loose. And it's ingenious and simple, but it's 0:16:10.960 --> 0:16:15.520 also very complex, and it involves the relationship between magnetism 0:16:15.800 --> 0:16:33.640 and electricity. So Chuck, yes, we're talking about knocking electrons loose, 0:16:33.680 --> 0:16:36.520 which is ultimately the basis of producing electricity. 0:16:36.960 --> 0:16:39.920 Yeah, Like when you were a kid in elementary school, 0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:42.520 you probably did the little balloon trick where you make 0:16:42.560 --> 0:16:44.920 static electricity and make the balloon stick to your sweater. 0:16:45.520 --> 0:16:47.680 All you're doing, you're rubbing that balloon on your sweater, 0:16:47.760 --> 0:16:51.560 and electrons are jumping from that balloon onto your sweater. 0:16:52.240 --> 0:16:55.560 And now there are two different charges going on. Because 0:16:56.040 --> 0:17:00.000 you're overcharged, the balloon is now undercharged, and because opposite 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:03.160 it charges a tract it sticks to your sweater, right, 0:17:03.240 --> 0:17:05.080 And that's static electricity. 0:17:04.520 --> 0:17:07.359 And static you know, you have static and dynamic, and 0:17:07.440 --> 0:17:13.120 dynamic indicates motion. Static indicates staying still, and they use 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:16.840 that to describe this type of electricity because the electrons 0:17:16.840 --> 0:17:19.560 don't flow, they just sit there and wait for a connection. 0:17:20.280 --> 0:17:23.560 Like when you touch something that's charged, like a door 0:17:23.640 --> 0:17:27.880 knob after you've shuffled with your feet in socks over carpet. 0:17:28.400 --> 0:17:31.320 When you touch that door knob, you're forming that connection, 0:17:31.440 --> 0:17:33.720 and all of a sudden, the balance is achieved once more, 0:17:33.960 --> 0:17:35.400 and the electrons flow. 0:17:35.320 --> 0:17:38.000 Like you're literally a conductor of electricity in that moment. 0:17:38.760 --> 0:17:42.920 So with current electricity, those electrons move, they move along 0:17:43.200 --> 0:17:46.920 a conductive material, say like copper wire or something like that. 0:17:46.920 --> 0:17:47.640 That's a hot one. 0:17:47.800 --> 0:17:53.520 Right. So let's talk about how you produce an electrical current, right, Okay, 0:17:53.920 --> 0:17:56.840 let's talk about generators and turbines and all that awesome stuff. 0:17:56.840 --> 0:18:00.600 It sounds like you need to generate that electricity with 0:18:00.760 --> 0:18:02.800 a generator, right. 0:18:02.840 --> 0:18:06.000 I think that's what generators are called. That's why they're 0:18:06.000 --> 0:18:06.400 called there. 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:09.120 Yeah, it's funny just how basic some of these things are. 0:18:09.440 --> 0:18:10.920 Like you say, a compu tour. 0:18:10.960 --> 0:18:13.320 Right, but but you just you've heard it so many 0:18:13.359 --> 0:18:15.280 times you take it for granted and this is its meaning, 0:18:15.320 --> 0:18:18.000 and it's like looking at a word too frequently. 0:18:18.960 --> 0:18:20.639 Yeah, I think I think a lot of these words 0:18:21.480 --> 0:18:26.479 are like that, like a generator or a core puzzle 0:18:27.640 --> 0:18:31.600 or a what's it called when he stop down the electricity, 0:18:31.600 --> 0:18:34.919 which we'll get to transformer? Yeah, it transforms something. But 0:18:35.000 --> 0:18:36.920 you say them so much, you're like, what's a transformer do? 0:18:37.200 --> 0:18:37.280 Right? 0:18:37.440 --> 0:18:37.679 You know? 0:18:38.040 --> 0:18:40.760 Yeah, anyway, I've been reading too much science for dummies, 0:18:40.760 --> 0:18:46.080 I think. All right, so generators, well, I guess it 0:18:46.119 --> 0:18:47.760 all comes down to magnetism. 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:49.760 Yes, in the case of generators. 0:18:50.200 --> 0:18:53.840 And if you want to listen to two shows Lightning 0:18:53.880 --> 0:18:57.119 and Magnetism before this one, it might help you understand 0:18:57.119 --> 0:18:58.080 electricity a little. 0:18:57.920 --> 0:18:59.720 Bit more, all right, So just go listen to those, 0:18:59.720 --> 0:19:02.439 well to do that right now, wait two hours. So 0:19:03.880 --> 0:19:08.439 what I think Faraday figured out was that because of 0:19:08.440 --> 0:19:14.200 this relationship between a magnet and electricity, you can take 0:19:14.240 --> 0:19:19.560 a magnet and you can move electrons in a say, 0:19:19.640 --> 0:19:23.160 conductive material. You can knock the electrons loose basically using 0:19:23.200 --> 0:19:23.720 a magnet. 0:19:23.960 --> 0:19:26.080 Yeah, it's like what happens when you attract a paper 0:19:26.080 --> 0:19:28.399 clip to a magnet. It's just the transfer of electrons 0:19:28.840 --> 0:19:29.480 jumping around. 0:19:29.520 --> 0:19:33.280 And you create a flow by flipping the polarity. And 0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:37.960 you can do this by rotating metal right, Yeah, say 0:19:38.040 --> 0:19:41.480 like a coiled copper within the two poles of a 0:19:41.560 --> 0:19:44.920 large magnet. And when you do this, you're reversing polarity 0:19:45.200 --> 0:19:48.840 all of a sudden, Yeah, and you are knocking the 0:19:48.880 --> 0:19:54.119 electrons loose in those coils. And the way that you 0:19:54.440 --> 0:20:00.480 spin the coils very quickly is by hooking the coils 0:20:00.520 --> 0:20:04.119 to say a shaft. Yeah, we kind of did this backwards. 0:20:04.359 --> 0:20:07.240 Let's start at the beginning. You want to Okay, let's 0:20:07.280 --> 0:20:08.560 go to Niagara Falls. 0:20:08.840 --> 0:20:14.840 Okay, back in eighteen ninety five George. 0:20:14.480 --> 0:20:18.600 Westinghouse, who is Nikola Tesla's boss, Which, by the way, 0:20:18.600 --> 0:20:20.639 if you want to listen to another really good podcast, 0:20:21.800 --> 0:20:23.920 go listen to that one, Nikola Tesla one. 0:20:24.119 --> 0:20:24.359 Yeah. 0:20:24.400 --> 0:20:27.040 Remember it was all about the ac DC war between 0:20:27.040 --> 0:20:31.600 Tesla and Addison. Yeah, good episode, killed shocking animals. Yeah, yeah, 0:20:31.640 --> 0:20:37.000 it's pretty awful. But in eighteen ninety five, George Westinghouse 0:20:37.119 --> 0:20:41.119 set up a hydro electric power plant along the Niagara Falls. 0:20:41.800 --> 0:20:44.880 And what he did was he had a means of 0:20:45.320 --> 0:20:48.800 taking the movement of water, which is kinetic energy. The 0:20:48.840 --> 0:20:51.399 water at the top of the falls has potential energy, 0:20:51.560 --> 0:20:54.040 and then once it falls over, that potential turns to 0:20:54.119 --> 0:20:58.280 kinetic energy. Well, Westinghouse set up a turbine to catch 0:20:58.359 --> 0:21:02.400 this movement of water, right, which is actual energy, and 0:21:02.640 --> 0:21:07.320 have that movement spin a turbine, a propeller or a fan. 0:21:07.960 --> 0:21:11.560 Yeah, it's the same concept as an old gristmill, except 0:21:11.560 --> 0:21:14.840 it's not creating energy. It's just moving the stones that 0:21:14.920 --> 0:21:16.480 grind the wheat or corn. 0:21:16.600 --> 0:21:19.879 Right, the gristmill is in this case it's capturing that 0:21:20.040 --> 0:21:23.360 energy by or it's transferring it, we should say, by 0:21:23.720 --> 0:21:26.800 converting that kinetic energy from the water into mechanical energy 0:21:26.840 --> 0:21:31.280 spinning the turbine. The turbine is connected to that shaft 0:21:31.320 --> 0:21:34.320 I was talking about where we suddenly change course. And 0:21:34.400 --> 0:21:36.960 at the end of that shaft, which is now spinning 0:21:37.000 --> 0:21:39.160 thanks to the turbine, thanks to the movement of the water, 0:21:39.640 --> 0:21:43.120 is some coiled copper and that coiled copper is spinning 0:21:43.200 --> 0:21:45.760