VIDEO: volts and watts

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Voltage, current and power - you should know that

In the Electricity there are the terms voltage, current and power (as well as the associated electrical energy). You have to distinguish between these terms, because their meanings are different.

  • Most people associate the term "electricity" with something flowing. It is not for nothing that large bodies of water are also called rivers.
  • Electric current is actually something flowing: it flows or flows in the cables. electric charges move (invisible to the observer). This current can be recognized by its effects: the cable can get warm and a magnetic field occurs around the cable.
  • The electrical voltage, on the other hand, also belongs to the field of electricity theory, but it represents something static. You can recognize this from the indication of 3 V, which can be found on batteries.
  • In fact, voltage is closely related to the force that charges exert on one another. When you separate positive and negative charges, they attract each other. The electrical voltage is a measure of this attraction.
    • Calculate watts - this is how it works from amperage and voltage

    "Watt" is the unit of electrical power, which is made up of amperage and ...

  • If you connect the separate charges (for example the poles of a battery) via a consumer (lamp) and corresponding cables, then the charges follow this attraction. They flow through the cable as an electric current and make the lamp glow.
  • It follows from this: Without separate charges and the resulting voltage between the two locations of the charge, there is no current! Even water does not flow without a gradient or a pump.
  • The power of the electric current, on the other hand, is easy to calculate. It depends on the flowing current and the driving voltage. Both sizes are multiplied with each other.

Volts and watts - the units of voltage and power

Just as you measure lengths in meters and times in hours, the electrical parameters current, voltage and power are also measured in legally defined units.

  • For electricity, this is the unit amp (Abbreviation "A"). For example, a current of 0.5 A can flow.
  • The unit of voltage is the volt, in memory of the Italian physicist Alessandro Volta, who invented the forerunner of today's batteries. The abbreviation for volts is "V". A battery can have a voltage of 4.5 V, the electrical alternating current network of the socket has a voltage of 230 V.
  • The unit "watt", abbreviated to "W", is provided for the electrical power. Since the electrical power is calculated as "amperage times voltage", watts = amps x volts.
  • A power source has an electrical output of 1 watt if a current of 1 A flows there at a voltage of 1 V.
  • The "Watt" unit also honored a physicist, the Scottish inventor James Watt, who had to do with steam engines.
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