Electricity and Magnetism
Study Guide
Who is Nikola Tesla?
Nikola Tesla was an electrician, scientist, and inventor. He made over 100 discoveries about the connections between electricity and magnetism. Tesla's alternating current would allow him to build generators that would send electricity to homes hundreds of miles away. He died penniless, and did not receive credit for most of his inventions. It was not until he died that many realized that he was a genius.
Electricity produces - heat energy, sound energy, light energy and magnetism
Electromagnets are used in - many things we use everyday that require electricity
Magnets - opposites attract, if you put the north pole to another north pole, they repel. (Same south with south). The magnet will want to flip around. If you pull the poles apart the magnet gets
weaker, and if you push them together they will get stronger.
Opposites Attract Video
When you create a circuit - the more batteries you add to the circuit the brighter your lights will be, because you are adding more electricity. The more light bulbs you add the dimmer your lights will be because more bulbs are sharing the electricity.
current - the flow of electricity through a circuit
circuit - the path an electrical current flows on
closed circuit - has no openings, it is completely closed so the electricity can flow through it. A closed circuit is in the on position. When you "turn the lights on" you are closing a circuit with the switch.
open circuit - has an opening in the circuit so that the electricity cannot flow through. An open circuit is in the off position. When you "turn your lights off" you are opening the circuit with the switch.
diode - a diode is a tube or plastic thing with two metal pieces at the end that allow electricity to flow through them.
A parallel circuit - has two or more paths for current to flow through. Each additional light bulb added to a parallel circuit would be as bright as the others in the a parallel circuit. This does not occur in a series circuit.
A series circuit - is a circuit where there is only one path from the source (energy giver, in our case a battery) through all of the loads and back to the source. There are two disadvantages to a series circuit. One is that the more light bulbs you add to a series circuit the dimmer they get. Also if you remove a light bulb, or a wire, or switch from a series circuit everything in the circuit turns off.