About Electricity

We use and depend on electricity every single day. All we usually know about it is that it’s buried inside our walls, it runs our lights and VCRs, and we’re billed for it every month or so. Terms such as kilowatt hours, amperage, volts, and current are Greek to most of us. This is probably appropriate because the Greeks first described static electricity about 2,500 years ago. It was discovered that amber would accumulate a negative charge of static electricity when rubbed with sheep’s wool. Not known for a great sense of comedy, this probably became quite the party trick at Greek get-togethers. The word “electricity” has its root in the term electrum, which is Latin for “amber.” Understanding electricity is like understanding cooking: Once you know a bit about sautéing, cooking temperatures, seasonings, and how to make a decent pie crust, you can muddle through meal preparation and come up with more-than-edible results. If you know how electricity is produced and can toss around some vocabulary words, such as alternating current and resistance, you’ll be more comfortable with your electrical work. A task makes more sense when you understand its inner workings. This section isn’t going to give you enough information to challenge a Ph.D. in electrical engineering to a trivia contest at your local Jeopardy theme bar. You will, however, develop a working knowledge of electricity basics and how they apply to your own electrical system