What is Electricity ?

Hokitika Guardian, 3 May 1922, Page 4

What is Electricity ?

This question, often asked, receives nil up-to-date answer in a recent lecture by Professor J. A. Fleming on the general subject of “Electric Waves” at the Royal Institution (London). | An electric current reduced to first principles is, according to Professor ; Fleming, a drift of the - movement of I electrons. To enable his. audience to grasp some idea of electrons—which be said, were of two kinds, positive and negative—he asked them to imagine first uie smallest piece of gold that could possibly be seen under a good mi- j ercscope. That piece of gold would be u„oul the 100,000 th part of an inch, j If it could be divided up still further i into about 2,000 pieces, these would be j atoms. An atom, in fact was hardly I discernible in a good microscope. !

Electrons were still further lost in the depths of invisibility. They were each about the 100,000 th part of an atom. “They are as much smaller than an atom,” said Professor Fleming, “as a particle of dust just seen under a good microscope is smaller than a goli ball, i It is now generally considered that a I chemical atom is in structure something j like a solar system. In the centre is a nucleus built up of positive electricity, or electrons and round it circulate, in rings, a number of negative electrons, like planes.” These electrons moved about in a piece of copper wire, for instance, at the rate of GO miles a second —a kind of gas contained in the met 1 and an electric current consisted of electrons moving, not to and fro, as was their nature, but in the same direction. It was Faraday’s invention cf the induction coil, great lengths of wire wound in a circle, coupled with the method of creating electric oscillations by discharges of a Leyden jar, that led to the electrons being made to run forward. From that moment electricity was harnessed to the service of mankind.