A Beginner's View of Our Electric Universe - New

For completeness, I must tell you there are two systems by which we refer to current flow; conventional current
flow and electron flow. The normal domestic system uses ‘conventional flow’ which means the flow of electric
current from positive to negative. This is opposite to what you will have picked up already so I will explain.
The other term ‘electron flow’ is where we talk about the flow of electrons from negative to positive. The actual
effect these terms represent is precisely the same thing, so the only aspect to note is that conventional current
flow says that ‘holes’ (the places where electrons are missing from) flow in the opposite direction to electrons.
This can be confusing but it is important when reading about electricity to be aware of this distinction, so please
file it away for future reference. For the sake of clarity in this book when I refer to current flow, you can rest
assured that I mean electron flow from negative to positive, unless, of course, I deliberately say otherwise.
We now need to add another aspect to our discourse here on electricity, one that relates to the natural effect that
electrical conductors have that tends to ‘hold back’ the flow of electrons through them. Despite what conventional
astro-science says, gas in the plasma state in space is not a ‘perfect conductor’ that has no resistance to current
flow. The voltage you could measure at one point of a circuit within plasma is not the same voltage you would
measure at another point, so a voltage drop exists that defines a potential difference which therefore allows
current flow between the two points in question. When current flow occurs in any conductor (let us stay here
with gas in the plasma state) a small amount of energy gets lost through the electrons encountering a ‘natural
drag effect’ within that conductor. This drag or ‘resistance’ means that energy is being wasted (actually as
heat) so it is usually referred to as a ‘loss’ to the overall amount of energy in the circuit. The resistance within
plasma, however, is not very great at all so the losses are low, and so plasma, overall, is considered a very good
conductor, but significantly, not the perfect conductor that certain astro-scientists would have us believe.
The exact same thing happens with electric cables due to their resistance in any commercial or domestic setting.
Sometimes, the electric energy lost within a cable can be so great due to the cable’s internal resistance and the
current flow within it being very high, that the cable itself will heat up noticeably, perhaps to the point where
it melts its insulating cover or even the copper metal of the conductor inside. This allows us to understand the
concept of a thin wire safety fuse in the home situation that vaporises in a flash and bang when too much current
passes through it, thereby avoiding damage occurring to some item of domestic electrical equipment.
If electric current can flow in one direction around a circuit, then it can be made to flow in the other direction as
well by changing the polarity of the supply voltage. If we did this in the case of a simple circuit with a battery
and a bulb, it would not make any difference to the bulb whichever way the current was flowing through it - it
would still be at the same brightness determined by the power delivered from the battery. We call this type of
steady, single-direction current flow ‘Direct Current’ (DC) and it does not just apply to batteries, it applies to
current-conducting plasma as well. DC usually provides a constant level of electron flow, but this will reduce
when the voltage pressure available to push the electrons along gets weak, i.e. when a battery loses its charge.
DC power is the form of electricity we will be talking about when we discuss charged plasma in space.
64 | Some basic theory that will help