She half expected the battery to flare to life with sparks and the sizzle of energy, but of course it didn’t. Only the digital readings on its side indicated that amps were flowing through the system. Nova adjusted the dials, increasing the voltage.
-Archenemies, Marissa Meyers
I recently finished Book 2 of Marissa Meyers' Renegades trilogy. The books mingle some of the feel of the old Heroes TV show with the Avatar-like tension of infiltrating the enemy that may not actually be the enemy. The agonizing build of secrets and impending conflict is a lot of fun, but the action sequences, magic system, and technology are sometimes a little less than robust.
Last week I listened to the passage above, had a little bit of a nerd cringe at the idea of “increasing the voltage” on a battery, and thought I’d talk a little bit about electricity.
-Archenemies, Marissa Meyers
I recently finished Book 2 of Marissa Meyers' Renegades trilogy. The books mingle some of the feel of the old Heroes TV show with the Avatar-like tension of infiltrating the enemy that may not actually be the enemy. The agonizing build of secrets and impending conflict is a lot of fun, but the action sequences, magic system, and technology are sometimes a little less than robust.
Last week I listened to the passage above, had a little bit of a nerd cringe at the idea of “increasing the voltage” on a battery, and thought I’d talk a little bit about electricity.
Cover Art, Archenemies, Book 2 of the Renegades Trilogy
We all know that Volts, Amps, and Watts are involved, that electricity can come from a battery or from the wall, that more of it is more dangerous… but what does any of that actually mean?
Let’s start with Watts. If you read my dragon fire posts, you remember that Watts are a form of energy per second. This can be a measure of heat energy (as in how much Joules are absorbed by a knight’s shield every second it is absorbed by dragon’s fire), caloric energy (as in how many calories of lembas bread it takes to run a human body for a full day’s march) or (among many others) electrical energy (as in how many kWh a 1000-Watt microwave eats every second while warming your hot pocket).
What about Amps and Volts? It’s hard to visualize electrons, so let’s instead visualize something more straightforward: a large styrofoam cup of Coke. Let me present my wife’s college-days go-to from Sonic: the Route 44 Coke with extra ice:
Let’s start with Watts. If you read my dragon fire posts, you remember that Watts are a form of energy per second. This can be a measure of heat energy (as in how much Joules are absorbed by a knight’s shield every second it is absorbed by dragon’s fire), caloric energy (as in how many calories of lembas bread it takes to run a human body for a full day’s march) or (among many others) electrical energy (as in how many kWh a 1000-Watt microwave eats every second while warming your hot pocket).
What about Amps and Volts? It’s hard to visualize electrons, so let’s instead visualize something more straightforward: a large styrofoam cup of Coke. Let me present my wife’s college-days go-to from Sonic: the Route 44 Coke with extra ice:
Now, imagine you poke a hole in the bottom of that cup. Coke starts leaking:
If you wanted, you could use a stopwatch and a measuring cup to find the rate at which your Coke is leaking (say 1 TBSP/second). You could even say there is a tiny river, a current if you will, of Coke flowing from your leaky Styrofoam cup.
That current is Amps.
That’s right. The current of Coke (TBSP/second) is similar to the current of electricity (electrons/second). Amps is a measure of how many electrons are moving every second.
Actually electrons are super small—counting electrons per second would be kind of like counting Coke molecules per second—so we actually count electrons using Coulombs. 1 Coulomb is 624 million electrons (1 TBSP of Coke is about 494 billion trillion molecules, in case you’re curious). So if electricity is leaking at 624 million electrons per second (1 Coulomb / second), then it’s leaking at 1 Amp.
OK! So Amps are a measure of electrical current. What about Volts?
Imagine that you now place a fresh, full 44oz Sonic cup next to a 1.5 L bottle of Pepsi that someone just shook vigorously. Now you poke the same size hole in each one. Which will leak faster?
That current is Amps.
That’s right. The current of Coke (TBSP/second) is similar to the current of electricity (electrons/second). Amps is a measure of how many electrons are moving every second.
Actually electrons are super small—counting electrons per second would be kind of like counting Coke molecules per second—so we actually count electrons using Coulombs. 1 Coulomb is 624 million electrons (1 TBSP of Coke is about 494 billion trillion molecules, in case you’re curious). So if electricity is leaking at 624 million electrons per second (1 Coulomb / second), then it’s leaking at 1 Amp.
OK! So Amps are a measure of electrical current. What about Volts?
Imagine that you now place a fresh, full 44oz Sonic cup next to a 1.5 L bottle of Pepsi that someone just shook vigorously. Now you poke the same size hole in each one. Which will leak faster?
That’s right, the shaken-up bottle of Pepsi will leak faster. This isn’t because Pepsi flows differently from Coke, it’s because there’s more pressure forcing it out of the hole. That pressure in the bottle pushes the Pepsi out of the hole much faster than the pressure in the Styrofoam cup does the Coke. You could say that the Pepsi has more potential to flow.
That potential is Volts.
Something with a lot of Volts has a lot of potential for electrons to flow. It takes very few Volts to get electrons to flow across something conductive (which is why you can feel a buzz on your tongue if you lick a 9V battery), while it takes a lot of Volts to get electricity to flow across something non-conductive like air (which is why spark plugs typically need 12,000-25,000 Volts to make tiny spark across a tiny air gap).
So there are the basics. Now that you know what Volts and Amps are, we can go into a little about batteries and whether it makes sense to “turn up” the voltage on your secret spy battery.
Questions about electricity (or the page-turning Renegades series)? Leave a comment.
That potential is Volts.
Something with a lot of Volts has a lot of potential for electrons to flow. It takes very few Volts to get electrons to flow across something conductive (which is why you can feel a buzz on your tongue if you lick a 9V battery), while it takes a lot of Volts to get electricity to flow across something non-conductive like air (which is why spark plugs typically need 12,000-25,000 Volts to make tiny spark across a tiny air gap).
So there are the basics. Now that you know what Volts and Amps are, we can go into a little about batteries and whether it makes sense to “turn up” the voltage on your secret spy battery.
Questions about electricity (or the page-turning Renegades series)? Leave a comment.