Electric Vocabulary

We all know the words around electricity, "charge," "positive," "battery", and more. But where do they come from and what do they really mean? Let the history of these words illuminate the physics of electric phenomena.
Lesson by James Sheils, animation by TED-Ed.
View the full lesson: ed.ted.com/lessons/electric-vo...

[@lordaaron6332]

one does really enjoy science when it's narrated historically

[@karangarg4631]

One can or one does - not one do :)

[@patrickmurray6567]

Lord Aaron I bet you would enjoy James Watson's autobiography, The Double Helix. It's a history of his and Francis Crick's discovery of the structure of DNA. I know it sounds boring, but the way Watson tells his story makes genetics seem far simpler and more interesting than you would expect.

[@parulaggarwal9405]

Lord Aaron its true for mathematics too.

[@kunalbadade7815]

Right bro

[@notagamer2452]

While one doesn't enjoy History when it is narrated historically

[@jamesthenabignumber]

Hi cwjakesteel. I wrote and narrated the video, so I can help with your question. Franklin simply guessed which material had an excessive of electrical fluid (and was 'positive'). When electrons were measured, it was found that they move the other way - so a positive material has too few electrons. Franklin didn't have the technology to discover this at the time, so he took a 50/50 guess that happened to be incorrect! Hope that helps.

[@naveensundar4765]

and it was wrong lol!

[@dylanp7169]

i guess that's why they decided electrons were negative to just make it work with the vocabulary

[@jjsmith706]

This might be the coolest video essay on etymology I'e ever seen. Well done, James.

[@nyagriffin2606]

this actually helped me a lot to understand how electricity itself works, thank you :)

[@Zeroydeas]

This was surprisingly enthralling for the amount of detail. I usually lose interest when a subject I'm not particularly interested in is explained in great detail, but the presentation kept me interested through and through.

[@peteeed11]

seriously just learned so many things

[@mrchordstriker]

Same. And I did well in college. This explanation should be in schools.

[@gaymicrowave9302]

Vincent Hildebrand c-c-college? And my teacher is making me learn about this in primary O-O

[@brucebillb]

I love science and etymology. This video is a treat!

[@thealiker7777]

I pretty much know about electricity and all but ur narration gives me a newer look at them. This is great.

[@fukidngan]

I wish I saw this seven years ago when I was studying physic

[@mrchordstriker]

Awesome research I really appreciate your work on this topic!

[@parulaggarwal9405]

Your channel is too awesome. Please upload some videos on how atom and its structure was discovered.

[@simongross3122]

Excellent video. Knowing the etymology of electrical terminology is useful and interesting. Thank you.

[@WarPig42]

Very informative! Excellent video as always.

[@jordanmp627]

These are all so great. Thanks.

[@user-ci2lg1lw5b]

전기를 표현하는 낱말에 대하여 배우는 뜻깊은 시간이 되었습니다. 이렇게 전기 용어들이 어디에서 나왔고 정말 무었을 뜻하는지 배웠습니다. 정말 재미있는 시간이 되었습니다. 좋은 시간 감사합니다.

[@Aresftfun]

Very good, concise, informational, interesting. Though I'm not completely familiar with the topic, the information seems good.

[@biomutarist6832]

This is such a well-chosen, animated, and narrated topic. Thank you very much :)

[@jebc4652]

I marvel at this video, it's great to know the origin of the terms.

[@Ru7ii]

Thank you for keeping my unconscious mind refreshed of knowledge in summer vacations too TEDEducation.

[@electriciantelford786]

a lot of facts I never knew. Very well presented

[@fabihakhan4593]

This is probably one of the best videos on KZbin!!

[@thatflightsimguy]

I learnt something new today. Thank You

[@DoctorThomasElliot]

Wow! Amazing Video. Very well done. It would be a great introduction in school to start learning about electricity

[@user-ci2lg1lw5b]

전기 용어에 대해서 배워보는 시간이 되었습니다. 전기에 발전을 주인공으로한 간단한 역사에 대해서도 배워보는 시간이 되었습니다. 정말 재미있는 시간이 되었습니다. 감사합니다.

[@jayjayd]

Wonderful episode!

[@huntingresonance]

excellent.... lovely video. Thank you.

[@sharmisthamodak1651]

Extremely well spoken

[@y0schi]

Amazing video! Can you make another one that is like 3 hours long? :D

[@rylanmeyer2646]

I love science, but my science teacher is getting on my nerve and so I've taught myself most of what I know. thanks for making this to help me and many others.

[@manasimalhotra9567]

1:31 the way he sor it

[@Exist64]

I was hoping to hear something about voltage and resistance as well

[@Gokool_wid_Life_coz_YoLO]

Awesome.. I thought that conventional current was to make charge flow look like current flow is synonymous conventional wisdom of particles going from energy levels higher to lower, like a ball falls from higher level to ground. So conventional current flows from higher level level ( ie. +ve) to lower level ( - ve) while actually electrons flowing from negative to positive terminals. Thanks to Benjamin Franklin and the last person who thought to keep everything the same as how Benjamin thought!

[@irishivy9031]

this helped me very well

[@katherinecrane267]

I did not realise where the term 'battery' came from.

[@metinkartop2898]

From the collective name of the cannons on a ship.

[@mirrorview101]

Really awesome video. I was having difficulty in understanding "conventional current" but this video helped me a lot !!!

[@JorisBlanken]

i learn so much from the channel, more that i learn from school atleast.

[@robobrain10000]

Can you guys make more of these hysterical videos? they are interesting.

[@9707tim]

I love the video very valuable information good to know thanks for doing the video

[@leeyan9049]

What can I say? TED-Ed videos are very nice indeed.

[@nishitjoshi1600]

wow simply amazing

[@scrappmutt2]

I'm a bit confused at 4:15. Would the man on the block of wax have the positive charge or would the glass rod using today's language? Which one would actually have the larger surplus of electrons?

[@realizejust415]

Is the potential of a charge the energy of attracting other charges or its kinetic energy? Is the electron potential negative? What is the difference between positive and negative potential?

[@treylehman4902]

Wow ma boi Franklin was actually surprisingly accurate for the lack of knowledge at the time

[@pulsefel9210]

it always bugged my in my highschool physics class when dealing with circuits how the diagram would show current flowing from positive to negative.

[@cwjakesteel]

Thanks!

[@fremtid]

Wonderful video!

[@jamesthenabignumber]

You are quite right in all that you say. The word 'battery' has been transformed to speak about a chain of chemical cells, rather than capacitors. However, I decided to leave this detail out of the video, focusing on Franklin's original metaphor and his incorrect guess about the direction of the electrical fluid. These electrostatic storage devices were the best they had at the time...

[@vidh100]

Answered my childhood question 5:59 Thank you !

[@bluepache7012]

Thank for the video it's help me to do the homework

[@vcdnmms7140]

hello can u send about physics topics more

[@adarshks8024]

Amazing video..

[@wbeaty]

Sheils is here promoting a typical electricity misconception: the wrong idea that electric current is a flow of electrons. Wrong. Electric current IN SOLID METALS is a flow of electrons. The same isn't true of electric currents in liquid metals, human tissue, the nervous system, battery acid, the ground, oceans, sparks and plasmas, electroplating tanks etc., etc. In electrolyte conductors, no free electrons can exist for more than nanoseconds. In all of these, the charge-carriers are two polarities of ions: pos and neg electrically charged atoms. Electric current here is a flow of ions. And they flow in two directions: two interpenetrating ion-clouds flowing past each other in opposite directions. Interestingly, in acids and in fuel-cell electrolytes, positive hydrogen ions are a major part of electric current ...and these H+ ions, they're also called *protons.* Proton flow is far from impossible. It just doesn't happen inside metal wires. If one deals only with metal wires, then yes, "conventional current" is backwards. Oops, that only applies to solid metals. In liquid metals (say, in aluminum production,) the positive aluminum ions flow one way and electrons the other. Which is the "true" direction of the current?) But as soon as we deal with human nerves, or currents in dirt, or plasmas, etc., the power of Conventional Current reveals itself: we add up all the positive and negative charge flows, reverse the negative ones, and declare the result to be "the current" in that conductor. Is the electric current in a piece of living tissue composed of many different ion species of both charge polarities? No matter, it still only has one value of conventional current. (And only in non-liquid metal wires where the positive ions don't flow, does anything seem to be flowing backwards.) Franklin got it backwards? PSHAW!!! If not for his apparent error, everyone would go on thinking that "electric current" means the same thing as "electron flow." It very definitely does not.

[@jamesthenabignumber]

At the time of discovery, Franklin and others were investigating phenomena that today is described in terms of electron flow. So, within the realm of what Franklin was trying to describe, he did happen to make an incorrect guess about which object was lacking the substance he assumed flowed in these materials. The equivalent mistake might be to presume that 'cold' objects had more of a substance compared to 'hot' objects, when we now think about hot objects having more energy. My aim was to describe the history of the development of these electrical words, hopefully making the electron flow model easier for students to understand. I teach high school physics, and the first model of electrostatics a student encounters involve triboelectric phenomena between insulators, and the charging of metals. These all involve stationary positive charges, and moving electrons. Perhaps the only point where pre-university students encounter the flow of positive charge is with electrolysis. Faraday and Whewell developed the vocabulary of electrolysis based on idea that positive charges were in some way electrically heavier than negatively charges. In my paper, on which this video was based, I wrote: "Even though the electrodes were often placed side by side, Faraday and Whewell thought of a gravitational analogy for the electrical circuits. They placed the anode at the top, and the cathode at the bottom. Ions that were positively charge (in excess of charge) sank to the bottom and collected on the cathode. They were called ‘cations’. Any ions that were negatively charged (lacking in charge), like a bubble, floated to the top and collected on the anode. They were called ‘anions’. Anything that was electrically neutral remained floating around in the electrolyte." iopscience.iop.org/0031-9120/47/1/78/pdf/0031-9120_47_1_78.pdf So, as you can see, there was no intention to promote 'a typical electricity misconception', and I well understand that positive charge can also flow. I cut Faraday from the video proposal to TED-Ed, since they were already concerned that what you see was too long!

[@john7556]

@@jamesthenabignumber Brilliant video James, especially the revealing of hidden figures like de Fay. You should create an update using Will Beaty's approaching to modelling electric current, it would be awesome! :D

[@PurpleOpinionM]

The Baghdad battery that was used for electroplating should have been included somewhere in the video i think. Because they should have at least had a partial understanding of the workings of electricity and batteries to make such a complex device

[@dudeypierson5663]

I was expecting a video about interesting vocabulary. Instead I get a historical narrative on electron currents, can't say that I'm dissatisfied lol

[@jjsmith706]

Not "instead". "As well". You got both.

[@maghoshc8778]

Thank you so much

[@AtulVijayP]

Splendid video! This just solved the doubts that I had for years!!!!

[@Eagle3302PL]

Another great video :)

[@jamesthenabignumber]

Hello. I wrote and narrated the video. To answer your question, the man would still have a 'negative charge', as Franklin described it. During his time, this meant that the object lacked the 'electric fluid'. Now, even though we know he was wrong - that 'negative' objects don't lack fluid, but really have an excess of electrons - we still keep the old terminology. So, if you take the words literally, it contradicts the latest theory. My aim for the video was to provide an historical explanation.

[@twilightbts7058]

Great 👍

[@Kamalthewafi]

Nice work James this is certainly an area students have trouble with. The words charge, electricity end up being like alacazam or hocus pocus unless a students has a appreciation of the history of the words.

[@asrafuzzamanfahim1255]

You guys can teach us 'the thing ' that we can't learn in school for years.....

[@Skeluz]

This is great stuff.

[@pioternietz496]

Electricity for children / gray people: DIGITAL ENERGY SERVICES as well as extensive services up to and including operation and maintenance services for PV power plants round off the SMART CONNECTED RANGE.

[@cyclone722]

I learned things, Mission accomplished!

[@cornishchris8404]

0:21 What font is that?

[@rviiiiii]

neon

[@CentralFClub]

The whole -from history to science-I just learned today at school...

[@franzsno7019]

So if it weren’t for Franklin’s misnaming, would protons still be considered positive? And electrons negative?

[@RishiRajvid]

PLEASE MAKE A VIDEO ON MYTHOLOGICAL CREATURES

[@markrich7693]

That’s a really interesting history listen

[@bemanos12345]

awesome!

[@annramos5630]

Ted Ed is so educational.

[@ericthegamefreak]

Well, I didn't know this!

[@Zralf]

i actually learned somehting today, they don't put this as interestingly in school, in fact they do it so badly i either never knew this, or forgot the moment the bell rang.

[@Tomtompro]

That was cool!

[@cwjakesteel]

Wait...there's something I don't understand. About the last part of conventional current. It was said that he found that the electrical fluid was flowing in the opposite direction. But it wasn't stated earlier which direction franklin gave it. Because all they knew was what was like and what was opposite. And the current in the small gap moved too fast to see its direction. So how did they decide which direction the current flowed?

[@goldengifts3830]

Franklin just wanted to prank his friends

[@marwahmaher8574]

This video helped me a lot to understand the electric physics, thank you 🌼👍

[@FaithElements]

Awesome and fun.

[@soumitpaul7943]

Wonderful ❤️

[@ibrahimhussaini2701]

You said any object can be turned electric except metals and fluids according to charles...I ask how is this possible for metals to be non electric and glass to be electric since metals are conductors whereas glass etc are insulators? And also frlm where did you got this beautiful history of electricity?

[@minimalistuser8280]

So this is why studying charges is so confusing . I have been many times confused by what charge +/- meant

[@LoveRainbowFilly]

You should of added Telsa to the story! :)

[@indhuprashanthindhukutty920]

This nice class thanks Sri

[@thecaveoawesomeness]

this was great

[@ishan_murjhani]

I love you ted

[@iaminevitable5696]

Fuk i watched so many videos about conventional current but i didn't understand. Now after a long time i understand so easily

[@leeyan9049]

Nice vid for a technical translator

[@jiasea5979]

the curiosity wins

[@jamesthenabignumber]

I don't understand what you mean. I authored this lesson based on the etymology of electrical terminology. As I am an English speaker (born in England), I am interested in the English vocabulary. Therefore, it is hardly a surprise that British and American physicists will be mentioned. What is interesting is that so many scientific discoveries were made in this field of study by these two nations. Like it or not, that's how it happened!

[@z-e-r-o-]

_”The electron has become the salmon of electricity, swimming upstream in a ghostly river of conventional current.”_ Salmon! Thanks for a memorable metaphor. My new vocabulary was born.

[@minecraftmachine5337]

benjamin Franklin's prank was pretty funny

[@steven20600]

love you TEDeducation

[@LeeFazzani]

Benjamin Franklin was hilarious in this :)

[@TheMcKenzieHaus]

You just made so many things make sense 😂😂 thank you

[@14s0cc3r14]

oh Ben, you prankster!

[@kunalbadade7815]

Hey guys please make video on electric filed what exactly it consists of? 🙍

[@Bellishen]

Awesome :)

[@KhunkhaoOldChannel]

Electrifying!

[@danielanobre1360]

Wooo Benny! Luv ya!

[@randomgooy7456]

Nice video

[@SlushGuppy]

Oh man, they'd love you on Reddit.