A is for Ampere

Adabot: “Uh - ohhh …”

Adabot: “Did I break something?”

Ladyada: “Looks like you tripped the circuit breaker, Adabot.”

Adabot: “Wait - who did I trip?!”

Ladyada: “No, no - The circuit breaker isn’t a person, it’s a device in that box over there.”

Ladyada: “The circuit breaker turns off all the electricity when we draw too much electrical current.”

Adabot: “Ohhh …”

Ladyada: "And it’s also something *only* a grown-up should touch.”

Adabot: “Committed to memory!”

Adabot: “Wow - powering all my stuff must use *a lot* of current.”

Ladyada: “That's right - and we measure electrical current in amperes.”

Adabot: “Huh … why do we call it that?”

Ladyada: “The ampere is named after the scientist - Mr. André-Marie Ampère.”

Adabot: “Accessing database.”

Adabot: “André-Marie Ampère - a French scientist from the 1800’s.”

Ladyada: “That's right and Mr. Ampère was very curious about how electricity works.”

Adabot: “Curious - like me!”

André-Marie Ampère: “This is true.”

Ladyada: “And he conducted many experiments to learn about electricity.”

Ladyada: “The results of his experiments showed Mr. Ampère that electricity is created by the movement of many teeny objects …”

Ladyada: “… which are so small we can’t even see them.”

André-Marie Ampère: “Electrodynamic molecules!”

Ladyada: “Nowadays, we call these teeny objects - ‘electrons.’ ”

Ladyada: “And when electrons move we call that ‘electrical current.’ ”

André-Marie Ampère: “Makes sense to me.”

Adabot: “Oh! Now I get it Ladyada but, how do we measure amperes?”

Ladyada: “That’s easy - we use a multimeter.”

André-Marie Ampère: “Oh - I wish *I* ‘ad one of dzose!”

Ladyada: “In this circuit, electrons flow from one end of the battery, through the LED, and then back to the other end of the battery.”

Ladyada: “By sending the current through a multimeter, we’re able to measure the amount of electrons flowing through.”

Ladyada: “So this LED is using …”

Adabot: “0.05 amperes!”

Ladyada: “Correct.”

Adabot: “I wish I could *see* electrons move.”

Ladyada: “Well, you may not be able to see every single electron, but you can see the *effects* of electrical current.”

Adabot: “Really? How do we do that?”

Ladyada: “Well, you can see it when your boom box makes sound or, when your toaster heats up.”

Ladyada: “And you can feel it when your blowdryer blows hot air at you.”

Adabot: “I get it, electrical current makes electricity *go*!”

Adabot: “Those electrons are amazing!”

Ladyada: “That's right, Adabot. Hey, you know you don’t have any hair, right?”

Adabot: “WHA-?!”

André-Marie Ampère: “Zut Alors!”

END

This guide was first published on Jun 04, 2013. It was last updated on Jun 04, 2013.

This page (Transcript) was last updated on Jun 04, 2013.

Text editor powered by tinymce.