What Is "Electricity"?

What is electricity? This question is impossible to answer because the word "Electricity" has several contradictory meanings. These different meanings are incompatible, and the contradictions confuse everyone. If you don't understand electricity, you're not alone. Even teachers, engineers, and scientists have a hard time grasping the concept.

Obviously "electricity" cannot be several different things at the same time. Unfortunately we have defined the word Electricity in a crazy way. Because the word "electricity" lacks a distinct meaning, we can never pin down the nature of electricity. In the end we are forced to declare that there's no such stuff as "electricity" at all! Here's a quick example to illustrate the problem.

Do generators make electricity? To answer this question, consider the household light bulb. In a lamp cord the charges (electrons) sit in one place and wiggle back and forth. That's AC or alternating current. At the same time, the waves of electromagnetic field move rapidly forward. The wave energy does not wiggle, instead it races along the wires as it flows from the distant generators and into the light bulb. OK, now ask yourself this: is an electric current a flow of "electricity?" If so, then we MUST say that the "electricity" sits inside the wires and vibrates back and forth. It does not flow forward. Next, ask yourself if electricity is a form of energy. If it's energy, then "the electricity" DOESN'T wiggle back and forth within the wires, instead it's made of EM fields and it races forward at high speed. But it cannot do both! Which one is "the electricity", the wiggling electrons, or the high-speed EM field energy? The reference books give conflicting answers, so there *is* no answer.

If someone asks whether generators make electricity, it exposes a great flaw in the way we talk about "electricity". If we can repair this flaw, perhaps our explanations will finally make sense.

Below are the most common meanings of the word Electricity. Which one do you think is right? Think about it carefully. If one of these meanings is correct, all the others must be wrong! After all, no "science term" must ever have several conflicting definitions. Unfortunately dictionaries and encyclopedias have all of these contradictions. (Click the links to find out more about each one.)

1. The scientist's definition: "Electricity" means only one thing: it's the electrons and protons, the electric charge.

Examples: CURRENT OF ELECTRICITY. QUANTITY OF ELECTRICITY. COULOMBS OF ELECTRICITY.

2. The everyday definition: "Electricity" means only one thing: the electromagnetic field energy sent out by batteries and generators.

Examples: PRICE OF ELECTRICITY. KILOWATT-HOURS OF ELECTRICITY.

3. The grade-school definition: "Electricity" means only one thing: it refers to the flowing motion of electric charge.

Examples: "CURRENT" ELECTRICITY. AMPERES OF ELECTRICITY.

4. "Electricity" means only one thing: it refers to the amount of imbalance between quantities of electrons and protons.

Example: "STATIC" ELECTRICITY. DISCHARGE OF ELECTRICITY.

5. "Electricity" is nothing other than the classes of phenomena involving electric charges.

Examples: BIOELECTRICITY, PIEZOELECTRICITY, TRIBOELECTRICITY, THERMOELECTRICITY, ATMOSPHERIC ELECTRICITY ...ETC.

6. Other less common definitions:

"Electricity" refers to the flowing motion of electrical energy (electric power, Watts of electricity)

"Electricity" really means the electric potential or e-field (Volts of electricity)

"Electricity" only means the glowing nitrogen/oxygen plasma (sparks of electricity)

"Electricity" is nothing but a field of science (Basic Electricity, Advanced Electricity)

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