Article of electromagnetic physics

Presented by: Mateo Moya

Code: 1121229

Presented to: Hugo Maldonado

Universidad Francisco de Paula Santander

Faculty of Engineering

Cucuta

2016
 ELECTRICAL CHARGES

Have you ever wanted to know what electricity is exactly? Did you look foolish when
they talked about cations, anions and other families in high school? Would you like
to learn little "electrostatic magic tricks" with which to entertain the little ones? If at
least you answered yes to a couple of these questions, read on and hope to satisfy
your curiosity.

In this first installment I will focus on explaining some of the theoretical concepts that
we need to know in order to be able to follow, without any reader getting lost along
the way. In addition, in this small series of entries I will explain everything about static
electricity, not electric current. That will leave me well for future deliveries, either so
that some of my colleagues take over and explain to us this mysterious and important
phenomenon.
And where to begin? It's very clear. Necessarily, whenever we try to explain
something related to electricity, we must speak of our friends the electrons. And for
this, we must first present the atom and its various parts.
The word atom was created by Democritus (4th century BC) from a (sin) and tome
(divisible), indicating that it was the smallest portion of matter that we could find in
nature, from which Constructed all our reality. Fun facts about Democritus: he is
called "the philosopher who laughs" because the anecdotes about him give him a
cheerful and cheerful character. Theirs seem to be both phrases like "The principles
of all things are atoms and void" as "Life without parties is like a long road without
inns."
This concept of the atom as a kind of Lego piece with which to construct reality is
really revolutionary, because intuitively, for us everything is divisible. There is always
a smaller piece to get, and even today if you ask an entire class of ESO 3 if you can
divide a piece of paper, infinitely, into smaller and smaller pieces, the only drawback
you will find to say Yes, it is the inability to get tools small enough, even though
everyone has heard of atoms at some point. It is a counterintuitive idea and yet it
allows us to explain many of the chemical phenomena so well.
For a long time it was believed in the indivisibility of the atom, but nowadays we know
that this is a lie. I will not go into how the human discovered it, would give for an
entire input. It is enough that we stay in the moment in which the man knew that an
atom was formed by a nucleus much smaller than the total size of the atom, where
were the protons (particles with mass and positive charge) and the neutrons
(particles With mass and without electric charge). Around this nucleus was the bark,
practically empty, except for a few electrons (particles practically without mass,
compared with protons and neutrons and with negative charge) circling around the
nucleus. In particular, the electron is about 1800 times less heavy than the proton or
neutron (whose masses are almost identical).

As a curiosity, if we increased an atom until it was the size of a football field, the
nucleus would be a marble. And the electrons even smaller than simple ants (more
like the Atomic Ant because of the speed they would have to go) moving around
without stopping this marble. In this way we can better appreciate that the soccer
field (our atom) is practically composed of ... empty. Another idea that clashes head-
on with our intuitive conception of reality. The things we see are solid, hard to
imagine that really almost everything is ... nothing.
Do not be frightened, little more I am going to speak to you of the Theory of the Atom
and I will not even approach the modern theories, since nowadays we know that the
reality is quite more complex than this. But to explain the electrostatic phenomena
is more than enough. To this, we will add that the electrons (commonly represented
by e-) can pass from one atom to another, but not the protons nor the neutrons, since
when they are in the nucleus they can not leave it. Ah! And that the charge of the
electron and the proton is the same (same value, but opposite signs). So in a neutral
atom (ie, without net electric charge) the number of electrons is always equal to the
number of protons. If the atom loses or gains electrons it is then when it is positively
or negatively charged, and in that case it becomes what we call an ion: cation when
it loses electrons and has a positive charge; And anion when it gains electrons and
has, therefore, negative charge. This is known as "ionization" and it is said that the
atom has been ionized. Curiously, ion in Greek means "he who goes". Anion means
"the one that goes down" and cation "the one that goes upwards".
Let's repeat this more slowly and give a couple of examples. If I have an atom, let's
say lithium (Li), which has 3 protons inside the nucleus, then it will also have 3
electrons in its shell. And this is so for all the lithium atoms of nature, the only thing
that can vary is the number of neutrons (the atoms with the same number of protons
and different number of neutrons are called isotopes, surely you sound this name of
a certain known Series of pictures). So we have 3 positive charges and 3 negative
charges: +3 -3 = 0, that is, it has a neutral charge (net charge zero).
If lithium now loses at least one of these electrons, there will be more protons
(positive charges) than electrons (negative charges), being positively charged and
thus forming the lithium cation (+3 -2 = +1). However, if it gained at least one electron
(something that for lithium is highly unlikely for reasons that are not relevant) it would
have more electrons than protons, remaining with a negative total net charge, thus
forming an anion (+3 - 4 = -1). Anions are often called with the name of the finished
element in -uro, while cations usually retain the element's name. Examples: lithium
cation, sodium cation, calcium cation, chloride anion, fluoride anion, etc. In this way
we see that we can explain ionization exclusively by the movement (exchange) of
electrons. The rest of the components of the atom do not intervene. Reason why we
focus on these little friends so fast.

Lithium floating in oil

In short, the electron, discovered in 1897 by JJ Thomson, has practically no mass,

constitutes the fundamental unit of charge (although today we know that the charge
of quarks would be even smaller than that of the electron), and the two faces Which
presents the electric charge, his was called the "negative" charge. It moves at high
speed around the atomic nucleus and can leave the cortex of an atom and stop to
that of another (under certain circumstances).
We will take a detour, before ending, to speak briefly of plasma, since it is related to
ionization, and we have all heard of this fourth state of matter (yes, there are more
states than the typical solid, liquid and gaseous we are Accustomed to seeing and
studying). And although in "our nature" we do not see it, it is actually the most
abundant state in which matter is, if we look at space. We could describe it in a
simple and very summarized way as a kind of gaseous fluid in which the atoms of
the gas are ionized, giving very peculiar characteristics. The famous plasma balls
actually generate plasma inside. They are not deceiving us with a bombastic but
false name when selling them to us. We can also find plasma in fluorescent tubes,
plasma screens, etc. By the way, since we are, if you have any of these lamps at
home, do not place electronic devices nearby, or have it on too long.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
http://www.hablandodeciencia.com/articulos/2012/02/10/las-cargas-electricas-i/