# Tag Info

## New answers tagged current

0

For a series RL circuit with DC source and switch, there is a problem with opening the switch after it has been closed for some time. In the context of ideal circuit theory, the current through an inductor must be continuous since the voltage across is proportional the time derivative of the current through. Put less rigorously, if the inductor current is ...

2

Ok so I first have taken the diagram from the wikipedia page for reference and put it here. Now if you are happy with the idea of how the potential divider works... .... then I hope that you can see that $R_1$ and $R_2$ in the Wheatstone Bridge diagram form a potential divider and there is another potential divider with $R_3$ and $R_x$ - and the points ...

2

Is there a fallacy in this statement? At least two. First, unless one is referring to a perfect (ideal, etc.) conductor, only in the electrostatic case does the electric field inside a conductor vanish. Second, in the case of an ideal conductor, there can be a steady current through without an electric field inside. Recall that an electric field ...

0

You could answer this question easily by a simple "back of the enveloppe" calculation. Assume you have a plate of metal, say iron. Assume you displace all the free electrons from a 1-atom-thickness on one side to the other side. Calculate the charge densities on the surfaces. Calculate the electric field inside the plate. I expect you to find an enormous ...

0

Some notes: this Kinetic Energy that you use is the Maximum amount of kinetic energy among the electrons. it means maybe just a few of them has this amount of energy, other photo electrons with lower kinetic energies (therefor lower Velocity) just accelerate back to the plate that they been shot from. the Kinetic energy actually gets to Zero at the next ...

0

The amount of current that goes on either branch is dependent upon the resistance and any voltage potentials of the branch. Kirchhoff's law states that the same amount of current that enters a node, must leave the node.

1

The idea in the comments above is a good one. The reason you don't need to worry about the order is that you're looking for an equilibrium solution. In terms of going on forever, it's broadly true. I mean electro magnetic radiation is exactly the kind of effect you're talking about. In a circuit there is normally a dissipative term, but in a steady state ...

1

Maxwell's equation tells us that for the general case $$\vec{\nabla} \times \vec{E} = -\frac{\partial \vec{B}}{\partial t}$$ This vanishes not only when charges are stationary, but also when they are moving in a uniform continuous manner such as to produce a constant magnetic field (which describes your example). Another general case is when the charges ...

3

A counterpoint to Schwern's answer (which was instructive, but I believe wrong on some key points - but I will borrow a couple of numbers from it). I think the correct way to pose the question is: If a 300 mA current for 100 ms will kill a human, what should be the rate of change of the electric field around the body to induce that current? Treating ...

1

There is a concept of "voltage of a step"* in energy industry - if a high voltage power line is leaking into the ground and isn't shut down, then near that point the ground voltage difference over a single human step (when one feet is closer than the other) can be enough to kill a person; that's why it may be dangerous to approach fallen wires after a storm ...

0

Adding to other answers here and giving another perspective, the wiki article on Ground says The Earth serves as a (reasonably) constant potential reference against which other potentials can be measured. An electrical ground system should have an appropriate current-carrying capability to serve as an adequate zero-voltage reference level. In electronic ...

2

Note that a current carrying wire produces a circular magnetic field that's why it doesn't matter how you hold your hand ie how you rotate your hand around your arm as long as your thumb shows the direction of the current. Edit after comments: See the illustration I've added below. Now use your hand in the way that you've learned and convince yourself ...

20

I'll answer the concrete question, because it's one of those fun ones where the units are all wrong and the scales are just absurd. Does this also mean that if I release a million amperes of current into the earth, every living entity walking barefooted should immediately die? It depends on how long you do it and with how much power. And ...

1

Trying to address this misconception: I start of with a resistance of 1 ohm by the wire and 6 amperes which result in 6 volts. When I meet the resistor however the resistance increases to let's say 3. Does the current decrease at the same rate the resistance increases? So if the resistance goes down to 3 will the current be 2 so that in the end I have a ...

0

There's an energy transfer whenever there is a change in potential, not potential difference. The (electric) potential, measured in volts, is the electric potential energy (EPE) of a unit charge at a particular point in the circuit. So, imagine a particle of unit charge travelling in the direction of current. It starts off with a higher potential (therefore ...

0

You must put a battery with the positive terminal on (a) that has such potential difference that gives you a high enough current thay in its turn gives you a force equal but opposite of the gravitational force of the mass.In that way, you can determine the mass of the object. The magnetic force will pull upwards while the gravitational one will pull ...

9

Firstly we are not the best conductors, so current might be having a relatively hard time getting through us. But I believe the real reason is that you also need a high potential difference in order to get current flowing through you. Like lightning which needs a huge potential difference between the clouds and earth (so big that most of times a neutral ...

43

Electricity isn't a gas that expands out to shock anything in contact with it. Electricity is a flow from high voltage to low voltage. Touching a charged object is only dangerous if you become a current path--if it uses you to get somewhere. Even if the earth had a net charge, you aren't providing it anywhere to go, so you will not be shocked. It's somewhat ...

1

The minus sign is wrong.The reason for this is the x which you have chosen to be positive but is in fact negative. x points positively to the right and negatively to the left,and the horizontal vector that you are using in your picture is opposite to the direction of x.So,its x=-acotθ. Cheers!

0

As you already mentioned $$I = \int \vec{J} \cdot d\vec{A}$$ current is the charge-flow through a given surface. So If one talks about currents, the surface (and therefore its normal direction) is to be understood beforehand. You could assign a direction like this: $$\frac{\vec{I}}{I} = \frac{\int d\vec{A}}{A}$$ which is the mean normal direction of the ...

0

What I think is the best way to look at it is that current is completely local. What I mean is that actually current is defined a distinct region of space. We care about how much charge there is in a region of space and then how much charge is in that same region without worrying to what happened to the first amount of charge. On the other hand, the current ...

6

Typically this is explained by the saying, "current kills." It's not the charge (or potential above ground) that a body attains that hurts biological systems, it's the current that flows through them and either 1) heats them or 2) disrupts important electrical signals in the body. Heating damage occurs and can "cook" (cause 1st, 2nd, or 3rd degree burns ...

2

Take a capacitor and put it across a battery. There will be a transient current as the electrons go towards the anode . This happens very fast and the current is small. If you short the capacitor with a wire, the battery will empty all its charge on the short, which, depending on the battery can really be damaging. Your body accumulates some charge which ...

8

If you have an excess of electron in your body, your hair might stand on end and you might feel a bit negative (I couldn't help that pun), and you should probably avoid touching people or metal object if you don't want a static shock, but other than that, it's mostly harmless. The real danger comes from flowing electrons. Because the body basically runs on ...

2

The whole electrical power grid is connected to ground. I don't know the details of other regions, but if you are in North America, the two current carrying conductors in a residential electrical outlet are called "hot" and "neutral". The "neutral" conductor is connected to the Earth at many places. If your bare feet touch wet Earth, and your hand touches ...

1

If you are not in a complete electrical circuit, any electric shock caused by touching a charged object or wire is brief. These "static shocks" are slightly painful, but they are (rarely) dangerous or fatal. I'm sure you've experienced a minor static shock. By wearing insulating footwear, you break a complete circuit and forbid a flow of electricity from ...

-1

We have to add both of them. It is no more a choice between two of them.

Top 50 recent answers are included