Chapter 1 - Electricity, Waves, and Pulses

Abstract

This chapter discusses electrical engineering and the nature of electricity due to charged particles. Electrical engineering is concerned with making use of electricity as a way of transmitting and using power. The fundamental quantities of voltage and current, and the effects of electrical charge are also discussed. Electric voltage is the electrical form of pressure that forces the current to flow. Units of measurement, steady (DC) and alternating (AC) voltages, and sources of steady voltage such as batteries (cells) and dynamos are elaborated followed by a discussion of sources of alternating voltage such as alternators and electronic circuits. Electronics is a branch of electrical engineering that is concerned with controlling charged particles such as electrons and holes. Low-frequency electromagnetic waves are called radio waves, and are generated and detected using electronic methods. The waveform of a wave is its shape, and because an electromagnetic wave is invisible, the shape one refers to is the shape of the graph of (usually) voltage plotted against time. The simplest type of waveform is the shape of the wave that is generated by the magnet and coil arrangement. The shape that this generates is called a sinewave (or sine wave) and it is the same shape as a graph of the sine of an angle plotted against the angle. There are two actions that can be carried out on pulses and on square-shaped waves that are important for many purposes. One of these is differentiation and the other is integration.