|
What is ELECTRICITY? No one truly knows... I've been trying to figure it out for years... The word itself masks a phenomena that pervades the universe, seemingly making tangible a mystery we have yet to fully understand.
To paraphrase, "ELECTRICITY is neither a solid, liquid, nor gas; it has no weight, is invisible, occupies no space, moves at enormous speed, and yet it is something that is a normal part of nature." (1) It is "everywhere in the things around us. It is part of each leaf and stone. It is in the ground we walk on and in the air we breathe.. [A]ll the things we touch and use are really swirling clouds of ELECTRICITY." (2) Our unraveling of this mystery has enabled us to transform our environment and our minds into a wholly new paradigm of REALITY. Yet to define what ELECTRICITY is is not simple. ELECTRICITY is a force, an action, an event, something happening, a movement. It is a phenomena. It is a word that represents so many things that we are still not exactly certain what it is, where it begins and where it ends. Even a scientific explanation of what it is comes up short in describing its full effect. For example, Webster's Dictionary (3) defines it as follows: electricity: (noun) a basic form of energy that is a property of certain fundamental particles of matter and consists of mutually attractive positively and negatively charged particles (protons and electrons, respectively, or positrons and electrons). It is characterized by magnetic, chemical and radiant properties, measured in electrostatic or electromagnetic units. || an electric current, or stream of electrons || static electricity || the science or study of electricity. This definition quickly becomes complex, and yet even this definition lacks the cultural value of ELECTRICITY as a motive FORCE in CIVILIZATION. Even its definition as a noun is to be questioned. There is not one PARTICLE of stuff called ELECTRICITY. Instead, it is more an interaction between CHARGED PARTICLES of MATTER. It is an event, unfolding over TIME, with action as its key. A poetic definition of ELECTRICITY inscribed on a Washington, D.C. train station (4n) helps us to understand its role as a cultural force, as follows: Electricity - carrier of light and power - devourer of time and space - Bearer of human speech over land and sea - greatest servant of [humanity] - itself unknown. To attempt to answer the question "what is ELECTRICITY?" we need to understand it as in both its multitudinous details and also as a general, singular FORCE. In both scientific terms, such as in ATOMs and ELECTRONs, and in humanitarian terms of cultural value and societal change. In doing so, there will be no one paragraph or sentence that can explain what ELECTRICITY actually is, but rather a compilation of things and events that describe it as it appears to be, and that is the definition which follows throughout this exploratory thesis... To start our exploration, then, we will examine basic ELECTRICAL phenomena from a layperson's perspective. This will later allow for a holistic analysis of the science and art inherent in the ELECTRIFICATION of the world, in ARCHITECTURAL terms. |
|
In relation to the physical world, the BUILT ENVIRONMENT is seemingly made of solid MATTER. To look at a building is seemingly to see something "solid." But, if we can perceive the subatomic world, we are able to see there exists more SPACE than there is MATTER in our buildings.
Today, we have confirmed the intuitions of the Atomists, a school of natural philosophers created by Leucippus and his student Democritus of the fifth century B.C.E., regarding the nature of the material world around us. They believed that the world was made up of indivisible "ATOMs" which exist in a void, creating all of the material world through differing combinations of ATOMs coming together and separating, in constant movement. (5) Bertrand Russell stated that their atomic theory "was more nearly that of modern science than any other theory propounded in antiquity." (6) In fact, our knowledge has revealed that there is not just one ATOM, or four, but over 100 basic kinds of ATOMS. These are organized in the Periodic Table of Elements which shows the basic chemical elements (ATOMs) discovered to date, and their relationships with each other through atomic weight and other properties, such as whether they are a solid, liquid, or gas. Everything is devised of these basic atomic elements, including the universe, the stars, our air, water, and building materials, including ourselves. But these ATOMS were each found to be divisible into yet further parts. With the discovery of the ELECTRON in 1897, the English physicist J.J. Thomson proved that the ATOM was divisible. (7) The ELECTRON became understood as the "natural unit of electrical charge and current." (8) 
Unexplained phenomena led to further experiments which divulged knowledge about the interior of the ATOM, and brought forth further atomic models, including protons (positive ELECTRICAL CHARGE) and neutrons (neutral ELECTRICAL CHARGE) making up the ATOM's nucleus, in balance with its orbitting ELECTRONs (negatively CHARGED) whirring about. Like CHARGEs repel each other (+ +) (- -), while opposite CHARGEs attract each other ( - + ). ATOMs are normally electrically in balance, which is electrically neutral. Therefore, everything made up of ATOMs is also made up of an ELECTRICAL potential, and has ELECTRICITY in it. (9)
And today, further research has brought about sub-atomic models describing MATTER and anti-matter particles; including Leptons (photon, neutrino, antineutrino, ELECTRON, positron), Mesons (muons, pions, kayons), Baryons, including Nucleons (proton, antiproton, neutron, antineutron) and Hyperons (lambda, sigma, xi). (10), each having ELECTRICAL qualities. ATOMs are bound into different molecules, which are defined as "the smallest particle any compound material can be divided into without changing into a different material and, as such, it is both the next stage larger than the atom and so fantastically rich in its varieties that it easily serves as the common building unit of our world." (11) At this scale, physics professor James Trefil states that ATOMs bind together by sharing ELECTRONs, which metaphorically acts as the "glue" holding things together. (12) In fact, it is this inter-atomic ELECTRICAL FORCE between ATOMs which counteracts the downward pull of gravity, and allows us to build more permanent structures. (13) In another way of saying it, "MATTER.. is held in shape by ELECTRICAL FORCEs between ATOMs.." (14) This interaction between different ATOMs and their sharing of ELECTRONs is because some ATOMs lose their ELECTRONS from orbit and become positively CHARGED (+). Or they gain some ELECTRONS from another ATOM and become negatively CHARGED (-). They are then no longer neutrally balanced, and become known as ions, or unbalanced ATOMS. Ions "hustle around and try to borrow - or lose - ELECTRONS, so as to get back into ELECTRICAL balance." These electrically CHARGED ions interacting enables ELECTRICITY to flow. (15) And indeed, as Guy Murchie writes, it is the effect of ELECTRONS sharing orbits between different ATOMS in this "nonrandom or polarized motion, the collective effect of the velocities of many ELECTRONS flowing in a particular direction" that is ELECTRICITY. (16) Thus, everything in the physical universe including buildings, nature, and people are made up of these electrically CHARGED PARTICLEs of MATTER. |
|
ELECTRICITY takes on infinite forms in nature and how we utilize it in our civilization. For example, NUCLEAR reactions, PARTICLE showers like the Northern Lights, and brainwaves are all varieties of ELECTRICAL EVENTS.
Two of the most common experiences with the ELECTRICAL FORCE are revealed through ELECTRICAL CURRENT and ELECTROMAGNETISM. (17)
ELECTRICAL CURRENT, which is the continuous flow of ELECTRICITY, is fundamental to our daily ELECTRICAL revolution. Its importance was demonstrated in the form of Volta's first BATTERY in 1800, which is said to be "the greatest of all electrical discoveries." (18) Materials were utilized as to whether they were good CONDUCTORS, which easily allow the flow of ELECTRONS (like metals), or if they resisted the flow of ELECTRONS, they were called INSULATORS (such as plastic and glass). (19) This organization of materials has allowed us to control the flow of ELECTRICAL CURRENT, and the BATTERY solved the problem of starting the CURRENT to flow by getting the ELECTRONS moving.  There are two types of ELECTRICAL CURRENT, AC and DC. ALTERNATING CURRENT (AC) is a flow of ELECTRONS of varying magnitude which reverses direction, cycling back and forth many times per second. DIRECT CURRENT (DC) is the flow of ELECTRONS in one direction at a constant rate, like water flowing through a pipe. Today, our advanced knowledge of ELECTROMAGNETISM and ELECTRICAL CURRENT has radically changed our world, our understanding of nature, and of ourselves. This revolutionary and evolutionary transformation is evidenced by our CIVILIZATION's total dependence upon ELECTRICAL INFRASTRUCTURE. |
|
"Electrons at work are electronic energy... Electronics is the science of the electrons. It is the way we harness them and put them to work doing things [humans] had never been able to do before." (21)
Of all the complexities of our ELECTRICAL knowledge, ELECTRONICS is one of the most perplexing. Since the discovery of the ELECTRON, we have been in a constant state of putting ELECTRONS to work for us, and our new ELECTRONIC TECHNOLOGY have led to astonishing change. For example, we walk around in an INFORMATION SPACE of ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVEs that carry messages through walls and our bodies, different wavelengths determining whether information stays in copper wires, or whether it is to be sent through the air and reflected off the upper ATMOSPHERE or a satellite, or sent through the vacuum of SPACE to a probe millions of miles away. 
Likewise, ELECTRONIC COMPUTERs, automated devices, machine processes, and many other ELECTRONIC TECHNOLOGIES have been created by this revolution; such as ELECTRON microscopes, radar, and RADIO telescopes which have aided in our discovery of our universe, and our place in it.
It is important to remember, though, that when we analyze the ELECTRONICs REVOLUTION or an ELECTRONIC TECHNOLOGY such as the Internet COMPUTER NETWORK, that we are fundamentally describing a phenomenon that is, at its base, ELECTRICAL. That is, our practical knowledge of ELECTRONICs would not exist without our knowledge and harnessing of ELECTRICITY. And so it is important, when questioning the importance or influence of an ELECTRONIC device such as a COMPUTER, to remember that it is not mutually exclusive from where and how that device receives its source of ELECTRICAL CURRENT, such as a POWERPLANT miles away. We must remember, then, that these devices are often connected to a larger system through the ELECTRICAL INFRASTRUCTURE. And that, even though our ELECTRONIC TECHNOLOGIES seem to act individually, they are also an integral part of the larger system which constitutes our ELECTRICAL CIVILIZATION. |