Why is electricity so hard to understand? 

By on

ElectricityIt's been a busy few months on different projects or busy couple of decades depending on how I look at it. I can say that on the odd (frequent) occasion when trying to explain something (i.e. electricity) I felt like banging my head against the wall. To be fair to everyone this does include talking to electrical engineers as well as non-electrical types. I have found out that I'm not the only one to wonder why it is difficult to understand electricity and as it turns out the answer may not simply be that everyone else is not quite with it.

The link below is for an article by someone called William Beaty where he has collected a lot of misconceptions and put them together to illustrate perhaps why it is a difficult concept to understand. In a strange way if you read it (and beware before you start it is a long winded page), it does spread some light on why there is of confusion.

Why is electricity so hard to understand?

If in fact it does the opposite and confuses you even more than that may not necessarily be a bad thing. At least you know will know you need more guidance and hopefully see that visiting myElectrical.com more often is a good thing.



Steven McFadyen's avatar Steven McFadyen

Steven has over twenty five years experience working on some of the largest construction projects. He has a deep technical understanding of electrical engineering and is keen to share this knowledge. About the author

myElectrical Engineering

comments powered by Disqus



Railway Electrification Voltages

This post is quick introduction and overview to different railway electrification voltages used in answer to a question sent in via email. While there...

Photovoltaic (PV) - Electrical Calculations

Photovoltaic (PV) cells (sometimes called solar cells) convert solar energy into electrical energy.  Every year more and more PV systems are installed...

Contribute to myElectrcial

Have an opinion or something to say, want to ask or answer questions, share your knowledge then use our site to do it . As a community of people interested...

1,000 kV UHV First for China

At the beginning of the year China put the world's first 1,000 kV UHV transmission system into operation. Transmitting power at over a million volts is...

Motor Insulation

Insulation on a motor prevents interconnection of windings and the winding to earth.  When looking at motors, it is important to understand how the insulation...

Electric Motors

Collection of links to various places with useful motor information. I’ll try and return to the page every now and again to update it with any motor notes...

EU Code of Conduct on Data Centres - Best Practices

The European Union is implementing a voluntary code of practice for participants with the aim of improving the overall efficiency of data centres. As part...

MIT OpenCourseWare

MIT OpenCourseWare, makes the materials used in teaching all MIT subjects available on the Web, free of charge, to any user in the world.

Back to Basics - Ohm’s Law

Electrical engineering has a multitude of laws and theorems. It is fair to say the Ohm's Law is one of the more widely known; it not the most known. Developed...

Tips for a better Low Voltage Protection Discrimination Study

Carrying out a protection system discrimination study is critical to ensure the correct functioning of  the electrical system in the event of faults. ...

Have some knowledge to share

If you have some expert knowledge or experience, why not consider sharing this with our community.  

By writing an electrical note, you will be educating our users and at the same time promoting your expertise within the engineering community.

To get started and understand our policy, you can read our How to Write an Electrical Note