Electricity and Electric Circuits - Vocabulary Words

1. Electricity: This is the name given to a wide range of electrical phenomena that, in one
form or another, underlie just about everything around us.

2. Energy: The capacity for doing work. It may exist in potential, kinetic, thermal, electrical,
chemical, nuclear, or other various forms. There are, moreover, heat and
work—i.e., energy in the process of transfer from one body to another.

3. Potential Energy: Energy that is stored – or conserved - in an object or substance. This

stored energy is based on the position, arrangement or state of the object or substance.

4. Kinetic Energy: The energy that it possesses due to its motion. It is defined as the work
needed to accelerate a body of a given mass from rest to its stated velocity

5. Electrical force: A force in which positives repel positives but attract negatives and
negatives repel negatives but attract positives; equal numbers of each kind of particle
are required to perfectly balance this strong force.

6. Electrical charges: The physical property of matter that causes it to experience a force
when placed in an electromagnetic field. There are two types of electric charge: positive
and negative (commonly carried by protons and electrons respectively).

7. Conservation of charge: The principle that net electric charge is neither created nor
destroyed but is transferable from one object to another.

8. Conductor (also, give one example of a conductor): A material through which heat can
be transferred and electric charge can flow. Conductors are usually metals.

9. Insulator (also, give one example of an insulator): A material that is a poor conductor of
heat and that delays the transfer of heat./ A material that is a poor conductor of
electricity.
a. Example: Paper

10. Semiconductor: A device made of material not only with properties that fall between
those of a conductor and an insulator but also with resistance that changes abruptly
when other conditions change, such as temperature, voltage, and electric or magnetic
field.
a. Examples: Silicon, Ge, Se

11. Superconductor (give an example of a superconductor): A material that is a perfect

conductor with zero resistance to the flow of electric charge.
a. Examples: Aluminum and niobium.
12. Induction (give one example): When you redistribute the charge on an object simply by
putting a charged object near it.
a. Example: If a rubber balloon is charged negatively (possibly by rubbing it with
animal fur) and brought near the spheres, electrons within the two-sphere system
will be induced to move away from the balloon.

13. Electrically polarized (give 1 example): The term applied to an atom or molecule in
which the charges are aligned so that one side is slightly more positive or negative than
the opposite side.
a. Example: An experiment in which paper bits become polarized and are attracted
to a charged piece of acetate.

14. Charging by contact (give 1 example) When contact is made between a charged object
and a neutral object, electrons are transferred between the objects.
a. Example: When you comb hair and as your hair and the comb rub together, the
atoms in the comb gain electrons while your hair loses

15. Electric field: A force field that fills the space around every electric charge or group of
charges; measured by force per charge (newtons/ coulomb).

16. Electric potential: The energy that a charge has due to its location in an electric field.
The formula for it is electric potential energy (Ue) = coulomb constant (k) x (charges q1,
q2)/ distance of separation (r).

17. Electric energy (also, write its formula): A type of kinetic energy caused by
moving electric charges. The formula is: Electrical Energy = Power x Time
a. Unit: Joules or Watts

18. Electrostatic: The study of electric charges at rest, as opposed to electrodynamics.

19. Electric current: The flow of charge, pressured into motion by voltage and hampered by
resistance. I = V/R.
a. Unit: Amps
20. Potential difference (be sure to include voltage in your explanation): The difference in
electric potential (electric potential energy per charge) between two points; also called
voltage difference or simply voltage. (Voltage is what makes electric charges move).
Free charge flows when there is a difference and will continue to flow until both points
reach a common potential.

21. Electrical resistance: Opposition of an object to the flow of electric charge through it;
measured in ohms (Ω)

22. Direct current: Electric current in which the flow of charge is always in one direction.

23. Alternating current: Electric current that rapidly reverses in direction. The electric
charges vibrate at relatively fixed positions, usually at the rate of 60 Hz in North America.

24. Ohm’s Law: The current in a circuit is directly proportional to the voltage impressed
across the circuit and is inversely proportional to the resistance of the circuit. Current=
voltage/resistance (measured in amperes)

25. Electric power: The rate of electric energy transfer or the rate of doing work, which can
be computed as the product of current and voltage. Power = current x voltage. Units:
Watts and kilowatt

26. Circuit: Any path along which electrons can flow.

27. Parallel circuit (also, make a drawing on how this type of circuit would look): An electric
circuit with two or more devices connected so that the same voltage acts across each
one and any single one completes the circuit independently of the others.
 28. Series circuit (also, make a drawing on how this type of circuit would look): An electric
circuit with devices connected in such a way that the electric current through each of
them is the same.

Similarities and Differences between the Law of Universal Gravitation and Law of
Columbus
Law of Universal Gravitation
- Gravity is universal
- Every particle attracts every other particle in the universe with an attractive force that is
proportional to the mass of the two objects and inversely proportional to the squared
distance between them

F = G m1 m2
—---—---------
d2
Law of Columbus
- Attractive or repulsive forces between two charges is proportional to the magnitude of
the magnitude of the charges and inversely proportional to the squared distance
between them

F = K q1 q2
—---—-------
d2