Electronics > Beginners
Some noob questions
Mr D:
Thanks, i appreciate you taking the time, it helps.
One thing i don't understand though:
Imagine you were designing a complicated plumbing system in a building, moving water around the building through various pipes, valves and tanks at various pressures.
Say an alien landed and asked you to explain the physics of the system to him.
You wouldn't start to talk about analogies with electricity, volts, current etc, right?
So, when talking about electricity, why isn't it possible to explain it in terms of what it actually physically is?
Why is it always necessary to explain via analogy?
This is not meant as a criticism of your attempt to explain it. I just don't understand why it's never explained without resorting to analogy!
agehall:
--- Quote from: Mr D on July 17, 2018, 07:21:33 am ---Why is it always necessary to explain via analogy?
--- End quote ---
It is not.
HOWEVER, going down the physics route to explain quickly becomes very complicated and if you understand that, you probably would not be asking the question in the first place. So the easiest way to get a good understanding of what is happening, it is usually easier to use an analogy to something most people already know.
Mr D:
--- Quote from: Jwillis on July 17, 2018, 03:08:29 am ---The flow or rate that the water moves is called "Amps" or Current.
--- End quote ---
Ok, but what is being measured here? The physical speed that the current flows? Because water can move at different speeds. Can charge also move a different speeds?
Or is it the amount of electric charge per second that passes a certain point?
Because in the water analogy, you could have the same volume of water moving past a fixed point, whether it's a wide, deep, slow moving stream, or a 1 meter diameter pipeline at extremely high pressure.
agehall:
Now you are getting into things way beyond basics.
Current is charge moving over time. Wikipedia does a good job of describing what it is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_current
Mr D:
--- Quote from: agehall on July 17, 2018, 07:25:33 am ---
Going down the physics route to explain quickly becomes very complicated and if you understand that, you probably would not be asking the question in the first place. So the easiest way to get a good understanding of what is happening, it is usually easier to use an analogy to something most people already know.
--- End quote ---
OK, but when talking about flow of water, you're not really explaining it at a fundamental level, in terms of molecules and atoms, you're also generalizing.
So what is it about electricity that is so fundamentally less intuitive, that makes it so hard to understand, one needs to resort to an analogy of water?
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