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| A bird sits on an electrical line |
What is current?
Quick answer:
Flow of electrons
The electrons
are charges; we are getting the energy of electrons. So electron total flows occur in electricity.
What is voltage?
Quick answer:
The potential difference between the two ends of conductors.
We need
electron charges for electricity. But the flow of electrons force is not enough to make a potential difference. If we have no potential difference we don’t get
electrons flowing continuously.
What is power?
Power =
voltage × current
We are
getting current through potential differences so that is totally called power. We are
talking usually, about current or voltage or charge. These words are a misconception. Power
is the correct word for electrical energy.
Why need a good conductor for
electricity?
Because free electrons are used for conductivity. Conductors
have free electrons and that free electrons are used to conduct external
electric motive force to the devices. If we use a good conductor, the
conductivity is high because of more free electrons.
First, we should understand these points, and then come to the
topic.
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| A crow sits on an electrical line |
Why do birds are not getting an
electric shock when they sit on the electrical wire?
A bird sitting on a live wire will get a shock only if the
electric current passes through its body. We can compare the flow of
electricity through a body to the flow of water. Like in water flow, electric current always
flows from a higher potential level to a lower potential level.
The two
wires in an electric post are kept in different potentials. One wire, which we
call live, will be at a high potential, and it is the phase wire.
The other
wire is neutral and its potential is zero. On sitting on the live wire, the
bird’s potential will also be raised to the same potential as the wires.
We saw birds sitting on the electrical line casually but sometimes it’s getting
shocked. Do you think why it’s happen rarely?
If it comes
in contact with the neutral wire, a current will pass through its body from the
live wire to the neutral wire. Then the bird gets an electric shock. The bird
can sit on the live wire without getting an electric shock as long as it does not
touch the neutral wire.
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science