Hi I’m Mason TheHowToKid and this is episode #28 “The flow of electrons”.
In this video I show my interpretation of electricity and the flow of electrons from a DC battery. If I got this wrong keep in mind I’m only 9 years old. If i did in fact get it wrong then please leave a comment below and correct me, I would appreciate the education.
In this video I show a crude cartoon of a battery then explain how the electrons want to move from the crowded negative side to the less crowded positive but need a conductive pathway and are stuck without one.Next I add a wire (conductive pathway) and show the electrons flowing across it from the negative to the positive. I break the video there and explain that without resistance or a workload the wire will get hot and so will the battery and one of the two will most likely fail. At this point in the video I show a very dramatic view of my point. I’ve never seen a battery explode myself but have heard that they can be quite violent.
I have seen a fully charged cellphone battery get hot enough to throw sparks and put out a very large cloud of white smoke, about the same size as a 4th of july smoke bomb.
Let me stop there and try to explain a little better or at least break it down a little to make it easier to understand the way my teacher explained it to me. It was my Ahh hha! moment.
So I’ve already established that the electrons want to go from the very crowded negative side to the wide open spaces on the positive side, where they can spread there arms and relax. I’ve also shown how without a conductive pathway they just can’t go anywhere. Well lets say that we put a wire that runs from the negative to the positive. This wire is now going to be like a bridge for these poor overcrowded electrons that takes them to their promised land, their new world. All these electrons have been waiting for a long time now they have a bridge.
So they all try to climb over this bridge at the say time. You’ve got electrons running, little electron busses full of electrons and covered with their bags, there are little electron moving trucks stuffed full of their tiny tiny electron furniture. Lets even put a train on this bridge, cause every electron is trying to get over there at the same time. Here is the problem these bridges just can’t hold that kind of weight and they collapse, separating the negative and the positive again. I know this is a silly way of thinking about it but it worked for me. A simple wire just can’t hold all those electrons without getting hot and in most cases burning up.
Continuing with our silly example let find a solution. How do countries slow down their populations crossing over borders?
Tolls, check points, gates and inspection stations. Ok, lets put a check point on the middle of this bridge for these electrons (a load like a light bulb). Now they can only go so fast and are controlled. In turn the bridge holds and the flow of electrons can continue as they all go to the positive side. Backing out of our example, the check point for these electrons can be anything from a workload like a light or a motor. It can even be done with a resister. This slows down our flow of electrons across our wire, keeping it from getting hot and failing. Again all the electrons can continue to go from the negative to the positive.
Thanks for reading my write up if you have any questions watch the video or comment below.
If you liked this video check out my sister Hailey The How To Girl at her website or on Youtube.
Leave a Comment