Electricity
In this chapter, we learned about electricity and it's different components. For example, we looked at the history of electricity to understand it's past and evolution in regards to it's use by humans. Up until 1800, electricity to man was just static, not moving, and we wanted to know how our modern electricity came to be. That search led us to the study of Alessandro Volta, who in 1800, invented the electric battery, which produced the first steady flow of electric charge, and thus, produced a steady electric current. In honor of his phenomenal achievement, the unit that is stilled used today to measure the power of electricity was named after him; the Volt. All electric devices depend on some degree of electrical currents. We can control the flow of charge using electric fields and electric potential, or voltage. Volta continued his research at the University of Pavia, and discovered that the source of electricity was in the contact of dissimilar metals. Volta created the first battery by placing a disc of zinc and a disc of silver, and took a soaked piece of cloth in a salt solution. This battery produced a much increased potential difference, or voltage. So, we concluded that an electric cell is the simplest device which contains electrodes and electrolytes. Electrolytes are immersed solutions, such as a dilute acid, and electrodes are rods of dissimilar metals. The terminal is the part of the electrode outside the solution, and a battery is several electric cells connected together. The part of this chapter that I am most proud of myself in was the fascinating history that I was able to learn while studying electricity. I never imagined it was so interesting, deep, and quite frankly, old. If I could improve something, it would be the clarity of some of my definitions because I still find myself having to really sit there and think about it to remember and understand. I believe the two Habits of the Heart and Mind that I used the most during this chapter were Evidence and Perspective. I believe I used Evidence because it was a lot of history, and having to look deep into things to understand the origin of electricity, and how it works. I believe I used Perspective because we had to look at things the way people would have looked at it 200 years ago to understand the magnitude of what Volta discovered, and their rational when they began experimenting with electricity.