Selects: How Electricity Works | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW

hey everybody it's Josh and for this. week's select I've chosen our 2014. episode on electricity and I chose it as. a kind of Casey cases special dedication. to one of our younger listeners Charlie. Pendergrast who wrote in with a bunch of. good ideas one of which was electricity. well rather than just send them a link. and being boring I thought I'd share it. as a select for everybody to enjoy so if. you enjoy this select you can thank. Charlie thanks Charlie.

welcome to stuff you should know a. production of iHeart. Radio hey and welcome to the podcast I'm. Josh Clark there's Charles W Chuck. Bryant Jerry's over there Chuck's. wearing his last chance garage hat which. means that all is right with the world. yeah you know if Chuck's not wearing. that hat who knows what's going on yeah. there's I thought I lost this thing on.

once yeah I think I vaguely remember. that dude I freaked I was like I was on. the with Delta and everything I was like. oh here it is right it's on my head in. your back pocket like Bruce Spring scene. that's right uh how you doing great um. Chuck yes let's talk about electricity. electricity. electricity I've had the Talking Heads. song in my head which one electricity oh. okay where all he sees are little dots I.

thought you going to say once in a. lifetime no that's what is that called. once in a lifetime yeah oh uh yeah I've. been singing the um Schoolhouse Rock. Electricity song over and over in my. head what about the electric company. theme song um I haven't been singing. that but do you remember it yeah that. was I was electric company over Sesame. Street. even oh yeah I didn't think there had to. be like a you know I didn't know it was. like the stones or The Beetles you know. no it's uh and the correct answer there.

is the who by the. way what do you mean like that's the the. who is that right no I mean yeah I love. the who do but I'm with you I don't see. the need to rank things like that well. plus the Electric Company came on after. Sesame Street I think yeah it skewed. slightly older I think Sesame Street to. me felt like uh you know six seven eight. year olds electric companies more like 8. nine 10 12 and then even younger than. Sesame Street was pin wheel if I.

remember correctly that was after your. time okay pin wheel was pretty cute but. it was like little kids and then Sesame. Street was like little kids and then. electric company was like cool yeah and. Romper Room was kind of pre Sesame. Street even so was that the one with. reged an and. Andy I don't remember I just remember it. was was very immature yeah very childish. I think reged and Andy were in that well. at any rate we've angered enough people. now I know uh I have an intro for this. one great okay you ready mhm about 13.8.

billion years ago a little something. called The Big Bang happened and the. universe was created so says you so says. a lot of people yeah you know uh we. weren't around nobody saw it but it's. been detected and it's strongly. suspected by scientists that the. universe is 13.8 billion years old and. that it came from something called The. Big Bang which by the way I would love. to do an episode on yeah let's do it.

okay um and under the oaces of The Big. Bang Theory not the TV show but the. actual Theory yeah um at that moment all. of the energy in the entire universe was. created right then boom bam ever since. that point that energy has no more. energy has been created and none of that. energy has been destroyed but it changes. States it changes shapes it can be. locked up in different um places it can.

be transferred from one place to another. via some natural ways like convection. conduction radiation yeah um and like I. said it can be stored in stuff like it. can be stored in your body right fat is. potential energy that can be burned and. used for energy to carry out work yeah. which is all we're looking to do is work. that's right we use energy to carry out. work whether it's digging a shovel or. lighting a light bulb that's what energy. does it produces work right right yeah.

okay um we've figured out along the way. that we don't have to wait around for. radiation or convection or conduction to. do its thing to provide energy because. we'd have a lot of waiting to do we. wouldn't be in the computer age right. now if it weren't for something called. electricity yes which is basically how. humans have figured out how to harness. converting energy from one type of. another and then transmitting it a very.

long distance yeah because electricity. isn't a primary energy source like the. sun or solar radiation or nuclear energy. or even the flow of water kinetic energy. no it's created yeah it's an it's a. secondary energy source it's a carrier. that's right so it electricity carries. energy from one point to another and if. you understand that you understand the. very basis of what we're going to talk. about today yeah like we've figured out.

how to generate electricity to carry. energy to produce work down the line. that's right that's my in which is. usually mechanical energy is what's. produced right by a machine yeah so. think about this like if you capture. mechanical energy like water spinning a. turbine which we'll talk about yeah and. Niagara Falls that's not going to do. anything to light your light. bulb 200 miles away no not by itself no. unless you you connect the two you send.

the the work produced the energy. captured in Niagara Falls down to your. light bulb and that's what we do using. electricity that's. right uh yeah it's pretty simple. actually it seems complicated but it's. not no just electrons moving around yeah. let's talk about electrons man let's. talk about the atom well should we talk. about the history of the stuff yes let's. uh back in the olden days m in ancient.

times there were dudes messing around. with with energy and static electricity. without even knowing what they were. doing right they didn't understand it. but it doesn't mean that they weren't. playing around with it no and getting. Zapped because they're messing with. static electricity that's right which. we'll explain all that later too uh but. there was one dude called thalos of uh. malus he was a philosopher in Greece and. in 600 BC he is thought to have been the. first dude to to mess around with.

electrostatic static electricity by. rubbing uh amber with fur and he noticed. that dust and feathers and things were. attracted to it he didn't know what the. heck was going on but he knew something. was up right and that Amber plays a. pretty big role it's actually um Amber. uh the Latin or I'm sorry is it Greek. Greek word for Amber is um electron yeah. with a K yeah that was like look way. heavy metal yeah you know but that's so. like our our word electricity is derived.

from the Greek word for Amber from that. first experiment with static electricity. yeah and it was actually coined by a. dude named uh William Gilbert he was an. Englishman a physician and he was. studying sort of the same things with. static electricity that uh molus was and. he was the first person to say it's. electric when he saw these forces at. work with an exclamation point in his. finger in the air yeah we should. probably we should probably. differentiate like static there's a.

couple of types of electricity there's. static electricity and then there's. current electricity right and current. electricity is what we are able to. generate artificially static electricity. uh exists in nature just naturally yes. and that was the first experiments. carried out then there's other types of. current electricity like lightning but. at this time when these people are. messing with electric or static. electricity or um saying it's electric. for the first time yeah the concept of. electricity was that it was fluid well.

it it was fluid he was on the right. track something is Flowing but they. thought it was literally a fluid right. which they called uh which in those days. was called a humor and uh he said it. leaves what he called then an. uum effluvium right which is atmosphere. around it when you create this rubbing. action it removes that fluid right but. it wasn't fluid they were not dummies. back then but they were just figuring it.

all out no they weren't dummies because. even Ben Franklin thought it was a fluid. it was the prevailing idea or concept of. electricity um and Ben Franklin and a. couple of his contemporaries including a. guy named Thomas Francois dalard um were. studying electricity big time and it was. when they really investigated lightning. that. our understanding of current electricity. started to take shape yeah the old story. of Ben Franklin flying his kite may or.

may not have happened there some people. that think that didn't happen now but um. if if he didn't do it other people did. there were there were guys who died. carrying out that experiment yeah but. the it was definitely carried out I. don't know if Ben Franklin did or not. yeah that's that's sort of uh the story. that he flew the kite with the the key. and some people think it either didn't. go down like that or didn't go down with. him at all right but it's a great story. either way yeah and I think he at least. proposed it.

the the experiment well yeah and he was. the first guy to say that electricity. has a positive and negative charge and. that it flows from positive to negative. so he's a smart guy very smart he's a. polyman uh then there was another smart. dude uh named kulum uh Charles Augustin. de kulum and he is the one that wrote. kul's law and he said charges like. charges repel opposite charges attract. and that's kind of like the basis for it. all yeah and uh the force of these.

charges is proportional to the to their. product so if you multiply the charges. they are going to be very strong or. cancel one another out or push one. another away yeah he basically said you. can now calculate this right because of. my handy dandy little law yeah and with. a boom he said boom not. bang okay that came earlier uh later on. a guy named JJ Thompson in. 1897 said at a science conference hey I.

found something smaller than the. atom and uh everyone said silly man. Adams are invisible you can't it even. means invisible you. liar and he said no I promise it's. there's something smaller it's got a. negative charge and I'm going to call it. a COR pusle no he didn't yeah it's Latin. for small bodies and then I think I. don't know who later said let's change. it to electron yeah it sounds way cooler. but the discovery of the electron was. basically the the birth of what we know.

as electricity today yeah the. understanding of the electron is what. it's all about and what' you say like. 1897 yes so before that time I guess he. didn't understand the electron but he. understood electricity a guy named. Michael Faraday was working on the case. stud yeah basically everybody's like Ben. Franklin electricity hand in hand really. it's Michael Faraday who is British um. who really came to lay the foundation.

for electrifying the world he just he. created the first Dynamo which was a. generator um which we'll talk about he. um first electric motor yeah yeah he. just he got electricity and. he explained it to other people very. well can you even fathom how smart these. people were to be that in the dark and. figuring all this subatomic stuff out. yeah back then hats off top hats off to. these guys last chance garage hat off.

yeah and back on like I I have trouble. understanding it now when it's explained. through like kids for science websites. you know we're not inventing this. figuring this stuff out for the first. time right exactly and it's a pretty. dangerous field to try to figure out. blind too you know yeah I mean more than. one scientist got a shock from a laden. jar oh yeah and you can make those do. you make those in science class no yeah. you can make those well it's a we should. say a laden jar is a very primitive. capacitor you use metal rod in a jar a.

nail that's sunk into like some water. and it can store a charge yeah I think. Ben Franklin's kite experiment attached. the kite to or a rod or something to a. laden jar to store the charge too if. that happened right but again he did. make the proposal it's whether or not he. carried it out as a right question all. right I guess now we can get to Adams. finally atoms are very tiny and they. make up molecules and molecules make up. everything you see yeah Adams are the.

building block of matter that's right um. and and. Adam remember we're always talking about. nature loves homeostasis oh man does it. yes it. does um you've got a balance that nature. always seeks tries to achieve it same. with atoms or atoms are no exception I. should say uh within an atom you have a. nucleus which is made up of protons and. neutrons protons are positively charged. particles neutrons are neutral and then.

orbiting that nucleus making the cool. atom symbol are electrons and they're. negatively charged that's right and when. you have an equal number of protons to. electrons you have a neutral atom yeah. there's no potential energy there it's. just in Balance yeah and uh a lot of. stuff is like that a lot of stuff is. imbalance some stuff is not. well some stuff falls out of balance.

easier than other stuff well yeah the. electrons sometimes they're super. tightly bound to the atom and they don't. want to leave the house right they want. to stick around sometimes they're. they're crazy teenagers and the. slightest energy and movement makes them. jump off from the atom and just say I. want to go attach myself to something. else they go on rum Springer yeah you. know yeah and it depends on the material. and those types of of material that have.

either uh tightly connected or Loosely. connected atoms either um end up con. conducting electricity very well or. don't conduct electricity very well so. they act as either electrical conductors. or electrical insulators yeah like if. you pick up a stick off the ground its. electrons like staying close to home so. it's not going to conduct electricity if. you pick up a metal rod those electrons. are crazy loose and they like to go off. and do those things that teenage. electrons do and therefore it does.

collect uh conduct electricity right. very well under normal circumstances. when you pick up that Rod or you pick up. that stick the electrons are staying put. no matter what but we figured out along. the way thanks to the work of all of the. people from the Greeks to Faraday to Ben. Franklin to your guy with the cor pusle. idea yeah um JJ was his name yeah JJ JJ. Cor pusle. I think it was Thompson so thanks to the.

work of all these people we figured out. how to knock electrons. loose and it's ingenious and simple but. it's also very complex and it involves. the relationship between magnetism and. electricity. [Music].

so Chuck yes we're talking about. knocking electrons loose which is. ultimately the basis of producing. electricity yeah like when you were a. kid in elementary school you probably. did the little balloon trick where you. make static electricity and make the. balloon stick to your sweater right all. you're doing you're rubbing that balloon. on your sweater and electrons are. jumping from that balloon onto your. sweater mhm and now there are two. different Charges going on because. you're overcharged the balloon is now. undercharged and because opposite.

charges Attract it sticks to your. sweater right and that's static. electricity and static you know you have. static and dynamic and dynamic indicates. motion static indicates staying still um. and they use that to describe this type. of electricity because the electrons. don't flow they just sit there and wait. for a connection like when you touch. something that's charge like a door knob. yeah after you've shuffled with your. feet in socks over carpet when you touch. that door knob you're forming that.

connection and all of a sudden the. balance is achieved once more and the. electrons flow like you're literally a. conductor of electricity in that moment. right so with current electricity those. electrons move they move along a. conductive material yeah say like copper. wire or something like that that's a hot. one right so let's talk about how you. produce an electrical current right okay. let's talk about generators and turbines. and all that awesome stuff it sounds. like you need to generate that. electricity with a.

generator right I think that's what. generators are called that why they're. called that yeah it's funny just how. basic some of these things are like you. say a computor right but but you just. you've heard it so many times you take. it for granted and it loses its meaning. it's like looking at a word too. frequently yeah I think I think a lot of. these words are like. that like a generator or a uh core pusle. or a uh. what's it called when they stop down the.

electricity which will get due. Transformer yeah it transforms something. but you say them so much you're like. what's a Transformer do right you know. yeah anyway I've been reading too much. science for dummies I think all right so. uh generators um well I guess it all. comes down to magnetism yes in the case. of generators and if you want to listen. to two shows lightning and magnetism. before this one it might help you. understand electricity a little bit more. all right so just go listen to those. we'll wait do that right now we'll wait.

two hours so um what what I think. Faraday figured out was that because of. this relationship between um a magnet. and electricity you can take a magnet. and you can move electrons in a uh say. conductive material you can knock the. electrons loose basically using a magnet. yeah it's like what happens when you. attract a paper clip to a magnet it's. just the transfer of electrons right. jumping around and you create a flow by.

flipping the polarity and you can do. this by rotating metal right yeah say. like a coil copper within the two poles. of a large magnet and when you do this. you're reversing polarity all of a. sudden yeah and you are knocking the. electrons loose in those coils um and. the way that you spin the coils very. quickly is by. hooking the coils to say a shaft yeah we.

kind of did this backwards let's start. at the beginning you want to okay let's. go to Niagara Falls okay back in uh. 18 95 George westing house who is Nicola. Tesla's boss which by the way if you. want to listen to another really good. podcast um go listen to that one the. Nicola Tesla one yeah remember it was. all about the ACDC war between Tesla and. Edison yeah good episode kill shocking.

animals to death yeah it's pretty awful. what a jerk um but in 1895 George. westing house set up a hydroelectric. power plant along the Niagara Falls yeah. and what he did was he had a means of. taking the movement of water which is. kinetic energy the water at the top of. the falls has potential energy and then. once it falls over that potential turns. to kinetic energy while Westinghouse set. up a turbine to catch this MO movement. of water right which is actual energy.

yeah and have that movement spin a. turbine a propeller a fan yeah it's the. same concept as an old Gris Mill right. except it's not creating energy it's. just moving the stones that grind the. wheat or corn right the Gris Mill is. yeah in this case it's it's capturing. that energy Yeah by or it's transferring. it we should say by converting that. kinetic energy from the water into. mechanical energy spinning the the. turbine. the turbine is connected to that shaft I.

was talking about where we suddenly. Chang course and at the end of that. shaft which is now spinning thanks to. the turbine thanks to the movement of. the water yeah is some coiled copper and. that coiled copper is spinning within. those two magnets yeah that's the key. right and because of that the electrons. are being knocked loose you have a power. line leading from the coil copper out. and all of a sudden you have an electric. current yeah and um if you've ever been. to the Hoover Dam or something you don't. have to have a waterfall or a river to.

make this thing work if you that's why. they build dams you stop up the water. and then at the base of the dam you have. the means to release that water and then. it becomes that flowing water right and. then also uh for thermal power plants. they uh use nuclear power to create a. nuclear reaction to produce heat or they. um burn coal to produce heat and then. they use that heat to heat water and. then they use that water to create Steam. and then that Steam turns a turbine and. these are all just different methods.

whether it's solar or steam or n nuclear. I almost said it which is weird because. I definitely don't say it that way well. you you were very excited I think I said. it enough as a joke right that it slips. in but anyway all those are just means. to turn that turbine right and all it is. is you're using that stored energy yeah. or that kinetic energy like over here to. create electricity so you can transfer. it into work down the line that's right.

it's so cool yeah and this article uh we. used a few different articles for this. one like we said including some science. for kids websites which by the way I. highly recommend yeah if you don't get. something yeah it's a great place to do. to go visit or these kids websites. because they break it down like super. simply uh but in our article it uh it. describes a generator um as if it was a. water and a pump which made a lot of. sense to me um the generator is the pump.

but instead of pushing water through a. pipe it's pushing electrons down a a a. line a power line and that whole like. using water as an analogy um for. electricity fits very well yeah but you. need something to push it it's not it's. not a self- pusher so you need that. force and that force is voltage right. yeah electromotive Force it's the same. with water like um you have water. pressure that forces the water down the.

line right and with electricity you have. a a force that moves electricity in its. voltage like you said measured in volts. yeah and the electrical current um is. measured in amps and the amps represent. the total number of electrons flowing. through any one point of a circuit at. any every second and there's a lot of. them and if you have voltage and you add. that. to current which is amps you get power. which is Watts right and I think it's.

multiplied by it oh really yeah it is. okay I wasn't even thinking of it as a. math formula but it is it is a math. formula and the reason why it's a math. formula is because they're related like. you can flipflop them you can adjust. them um and that's the whole basis. of industrial power transmission that. which we'll get to later yeah um and I. know it sounds a little confusing with. volts amps and watts but they are all.

different like if you said you know that. guy was shocked and he had 120 volts uh. coring through his body that's not true. at all um because the vault is the force. the amps he's got he's got amps coursing. through his body yeah but you'd be a. huge geek to point that out to someone. someone said that and A good rule of. thumb is the higher the vaults the more. dangerous the shock yeah which is why in. America um most outlets in homes are too. or 120 volts where if you touch it.

you're going to feel it but it's. probably not going to kill you yeah in. the United States is 120 but it's. different in other countries right which. is why like a European Appliance can't. be plugged into an American Appliance. because no you got to get those adapters. yep so. um you were talking about uh current. which is the number of electrons flowing. through a circuit you have um the uh. volt which is the force or pressure.

that's pushing them down the line and. then you have um those two multiply by. one another to create Watts which is. power yeah you also there's one there's. another. um factor to electrical currents yeah um. and that is resistance oh yeah we didn't. talk about that we acted like it was all. either an insulator or conductor but you. can be a resistor well I mean everything. everything has a certain level of. resistance yeah but if you're an. official resistor that means current.

moves it just doesn't move like as fast. as it might in metal right or not at all. as in Wood yeah or um glass is another. good uh resistor insulator yeah um and. so so so is rubber yes but even. something is like conductive as copper. wire has a certain amount of resistance. and again that water flowing analy comes. into place like if you pump like some. water really really hard yes tried to. get a lot of water water through a very. small pipe it's still not going to come.

out very high very fast because you're. trying to force too much water through. that that little pipe right so in the. exact same way a thin wire where you're. trying to push a lot of amps through and. a lot of volts through uh it's going to. resist and when you when you have. resistance in an electrical circuit you. have um well you lose some of those. electrons that are flowing in the form. of heat which is produced by electrons.

bumping up against other atoms that. aren't sharing their their electrons um. and that's the result of friction yeah. and resistance is measured in ohms right. omm should we talk about circuits yeah. are we there I think so so all this is. well and good that's uh you know you can. supply power and we'll talk about this. more in detail to to homes from a power. plant um but you can also have a little. battery supplying that electrical energy.

to a iPhone let's say right and in that. case you need something called a circuit. which is basically just a a closed loop. that allows the electrons to travel and. in most Electronics it's like like you. said like copper wire maybe mhm and it. travels from uh you know there's a. switch that turns it on and off um which. is why a circuit is called a circuit. breaker like if you break that circuit. by turning the switch off or if the wire. like snaps or something it's going to no.

more electrons are going to be. flowing right because there's the and. the reason they're not going to be. flowing any longer is because the. positive pole and the negative Pole from. that circuit yeah are no longer. connected that's right another way to. look at voltage is that it is the. difference between uh electrons on one. side and electrons on another side of a. circuit and remember we talked about. nature always wanting balance yeah. electrons flow from negative to.

positive right that's right and as they. flow the reason they're flowing the. whole reason they're moving at all is. because there are not as many electrons. on the positive side as there are on the. negative side so they want to leave the. negative side to go achieve balance on. the positive side and ultimately make. whatever circuit it's traveling neutral. yeah you stick something in that circuit. and as those electrons are moving from. the negative side to the positive side. because again electricity is just the.

flow of electrons yeah you can convert. that movement into productive work yeah. mechanical energy right and anything you. attach onto a circuit to exploit that. flow of electrons for work is called the. load yeah it could be a light bulb or. you know whatever whatever mechanical. energy you're trying to create is your. load right and there's all sorts of. things you can do by attaching a load to. a circuit like a light bulb um a light. bulb basically. uses that electricity flow to um flow.

into a resistant filament yeah very thin. wire that purposely resists that flow of. electricity generating heat and in turn. heating up to produce light that's how a. light bulb works yeah you can also. recharge batteries which go in and force. electrons back into the negative. position so that the batteries recharged. and those electrons are ready to flow. again once you connect the circuit yeah. um there's also appliances that use.

resistors to produce heat like a hair. dryer or a toaster there's all sorts of. stuff you you can do to connect into the. circuit but it's all the same whether. it's a battery or a toaster or a whole. house if you want to look at it that way. it's you're plugging a load onto an. electrical circuit and exploiting the. flow of electrons yeah and I kind of. misspoke a minute ago when I said it. it's creating the mechanical energy you. need a motor to actually do that so yeah.

if you have a electric drill that's. great that you have electrons flowing. but it's not going to turn anything. unless you have that motor and uh. electric motor is basically just a. cylinder uh stuffed with magnets around. the edge and if you've ever used an. electric drill and you fire it up when. you look and see in the vents you can. actually see Sparks it's pretty cool. it's very cool it's like those little. guns you used to get at the circus when. you're a kid yeah God I love those um so. it's packed with those magnets around. the edge and in the middle you've got. your core which is you know like an iron.

wire and. uh it's wrapped around you know the the. copper is wrapped around the edges so. electricity flows to that core creates. magnetism and then that pushes against. the outer cylinder and makes that motor. spin around and then that's where you. get your mechanical energy right and uh. an electric motor is probably the best. example of how you're converting um. energy from one form to another and then. reconverting it because an electric.

motor is basically a generator in. Reverse yeah and so you use that. mechanical energy the spinning of the. turbine down the line and convert it in. your electric drill yeah back into. mechanical energy to spin spin the drill. yeah and in between is that flow of. electrons that's causing the whole thing. or that's carrying that energy from. point A to point B. [Music].

there's one other thing um if you look. at a plug that you're plugging an. appliance into because again you're just. attaching a load to that flow of. electrons and diverting it through your. Appliance and then it goes back on its. merry way right yeah if you look at a. plug sometimes you'll see three prongs. and the the third prong the one on the. bottom seems different from the other. ones it's round MH and and that is. actually a grounding Wire yeah very.

important very very important because as. awesome as we've gotten with producing. and directing electricity we can't. control the amount of electrons that. flow through an outlet to down to a. single electron right and so there's. such a thing as leakage of electrons. which is crazy and there's also um. electrical buildup that can happen where. if you're not using all of the um amps. in a through an appliance the residual.

amps can build up and they charge the. appliance and again as a static. electricity a charge is just sitting. there waiting to be neutralized yeah. sometimes through you which can make it. very dangerous yeah to prevent this they. have they connect the appliance through. either that third prong a plug or. through an actual grounding wire to a. copper wire that's driven into the. ground yeah and that's where the work. comes from ground yeah you're actually.

transferring that residual um electro. electric energy to the ground which is. basically an infinite reservoir for. charge dispersal to Earth yeah so like. when you look at a power line and you. see that uh bare wire coming down from. the power line and driven into the. ground by a stake that is the ground and. it goes down like 6 or 10 ft yeah or if. you look at every house you're going to. see near near the uh meter the. electrical meter you're going to see a.

probably a copper Rod driven into the. ground and that's your House's ground. exactly same thing with a um a lightning. rod it's a ground for your entire house. so that the lightning doesn't go through. your house it goes through the lightning. rod and the point of all of those is. that the Earth is it can take it go. ahead give it as many electrical shocks. as you want it's going to be fine so we. think and it's a very good it's very. good at just dispersing those charges so. that's what grounding comes from very. important stuff yeah and uh we mentioned.

Transformers earlier. um power plants create massive amounts. of electricity and you can't just shoot. that down a power line and straight into. a house because it will blow up. everything in your in your home. immediately yeah but they do need that. kind of juice in order to transfer like. hundreds of miles away from the power. plant you know if you don't live close. it's still got to get to you yeah so the. way they do that that is through. Transformers they um transmit the power.

with a lot of voltage so more Force less. amperage less resistance less resistance. which means you lose less and then once. it you know they stop it down along the. way and by the time it gets to your home. it's transform down to here in the. United States 120 volts yeah making more. elsewhere nice nice and safe right and. then you just plug your Appliance into. it and all of a sudden that electrical. energy transmits to. your toaster strudel being warmed your.

Hot Pocket with tainted Meats wow did. you hear about that yeah remember that. whole horse meat thing with Ikea the. last couple years it wasn't just Ikea. but they they were definitely called out. maybe most strongly for I think the Hot. Pockets too they called it unsound meat. which is just a word that sounds weird. in front of meat yeah unsound it's not. do you know want to go near it unsound. unclean it's biblical all right so now I. think we even though we've covered it in. the Tesla podcast we do need to go over. ACDC a little bit seriously go listen to.

that podcast that's a great one great. episode best Australian band of all time. they were good yeah yeah are good David. are they still around yeah man David. Bowie played a pretty mean. Tesla no I'm not talking about Tesla I'm. talking about. ACDC oh okay uh Tesla was all right sure. and they're not around that's why I was. really confused for a second I was more. confused about that than I was by any. aspect of electricity. I'm like yeah man of course they're. around like everyone and they're.

Australian uh yeah no ACDC is great and. they're still around huh yeah they're I. think they're putting an album together. right now good for them I'll bet it. sounds exactly like all the rest it. still rocks Blues based Rock uh in. Valour or velvet yes so there was a. battle being waged uh between Tesla and. Edison and Tesla was all about the AC. current alternating current Edison as we. know said no no no that's far too. dangerous and I'll prove this to you by. electrocuting animals and dogs and cats.

and even an elephant named Topsy Y and. um and he was alleged to have helped. botch the first electrocution by. Electric Chair by estate oh yeah um I. don't remember the details of that but. it's definitely in our our episode on he. exploded the guy yeah he was a real jerk. remember yeah um and I think we remember. I remember talking about there should be. a movie too about that that battle I. yeah I can't believe there's not it. sounds super nerdy but it would actually. be interesting it go over well these.

days agreed so uh batteries these days. use direct current power DC power and. that's means the positive and negative. terminals are always positive and. negative and it always electricity. always flows in the same direction from. negative to positive yeah it does not. alternate yeah just think about it this. way uh. negative an electron's negative yeah so. in any terminal that's where all the. negative charges bad vibes and then.

positive is where the electrons want to. be because they're seeking to balance it. out and create neutral so there's no. pole Good Vibes yeah or the very least. so so Vibes yeah true but not negative. Vibes no um and then you have. alternating current or AC which means. the current reverses 60 times per second. here in the US 50 times per second in. Europe so it's just reversing back and. forth alternating that current and. uh I guess so who won out in the end.

Tesla um on a large scale well yeah I. mean that's what power generation does. yeah but Edison has his batteries I. guess that he could throw at Tesla which. are pretty important too but uh yeah I. think we kind of came out in the same. way on that episode like we're like they. both kind of won yeah but Tesla was the. cooler dude although Tesla died. penniless in New York in the 1940s oh. yeah and Edison died of Rich fat guy he. died of consumption and gout that was.

Ben Franklin I guess we can finish with. um if if you get your power bill and. you're amazed and you wonder how they. calculate this stuff it's pretty easy. like we said here in the US we deliver. electricity into your home at 120 volts. so you got to remember that one two it's. important uh our article uses a space. heater as an example which I think is. pretty good you plug in that space. heater let's say it's the only thing. going in your house which is not. realistic but go with me you plug in the.

space heater and it comes out uh to 10. amps so you multiply that 10 times 120. because that's your voltage and you have. got 1200 watts of heat or 1.2 kilowatts. yes because that's how the power company. is going to measure it right because. they deal in big chunks and if you leave. that heater on for an hour you've just. used 1.2 kilowatt hours which which is. how your build yeah and if they charge. you a dime per kilowatt hour it's going.

to cost you 12 cents an hour to run that. space heater right pretty simple yep and. neat and that's why when you go to buy. an appliance you should look at that. little tag that says how many kilowatt. hours you're going to be burning that's. right the lower the better so. electricity huh you got anything else no. don't play around with it no don't uh. yes I always wear rubber sold shoes. because rubber is an insulator it is and. why because it hangs on to its electrons.

that's right the atoms that make up. rubber it's just that simple uh if you. want to know more about electricity you. can type that word in the search bar. howstuffworks.com you can also go on all. sorts of kids science sites and find out. more about it too uh and since I said. search bar it's time for listener. mail uh I'm going to call. this uh rare birthday shout out hey guys. my name is Pearl and I just wanted to. tell you how much a fan I am of your. show I was introduced uh to the podcast. by my best friend Molly we've been best.

friends for 12 years and uh many of our. conversations Begin by commenting on the. podcast for example we could not stop. laughing at your 1920s voice toward the. end of the underground tunnels episode. we laughed over and over that is a good. voice I think she's talking about this. one see that one yeah electricity Tesla. Edison killing animals all right that. was for you Molly and pearl uh whenever. we're in in the car together we find a. podcast of yours to listen to so we can. enjoy it together I was wondering if you.

could uh help her out Molly's 26th. birthday is April 9th I think it would. be totally awesome birthday gift if you. would send her a shout out during. listener mail I would be forever in your. debt uh thanks for doing the podcast I'm. a middle school teacher who always. listens during my prep periods and so. happy birthday Molly happy 26 this. should be close yeah happy birthday to. April 9th that was very nice of us Chuck. and uh thank you Pearl web in Chicago. and your friendship means a lot to us.

yeah you know your friendship with one. another yeah and then conversely through. us all together in their car nice yeah. well if you want to get uh some sort of. shout out sometimes Chuck uh Danes too. he's very nice you can send us an email. to stuff podcast iheartradio.com. [Music]. stuff you should know is a production of. iHeart radio for more podcasts ihart. radio visit the iHeart Radio app Apple. podcasts or wherever you listen to your.

favorite shows. [Music].