• Question: Is electricity a solid liquid or gas?

    Asked by 11sofdel to James, Marcus, Martin, Rob, Suzanne on 16 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Martin Zaltz Austwick

      Martin Zaltz Austwick answered on 15 Mar 2012:

      It’s none of those! Electricity is a force. Charged particles (like electrons) are pulled and pushed around by the force of electricity. This movement of charged particles creates an electric current. Streams of charged particles can flow through solids (like electrical wires), liquids (I can’t think of a good example, but they can!) or gases (like lightning). You can think of the flow of electrons or charged particles as being a bit like a liquid – but remember, they’re moving through matter.

    • Photo: Marcus Gallagher-Jones

      Marcus Gallagher-Jones answered on 16 Mar 2012:

      None of the above. It is the movement of electrons through materials. Salt water will conduct electricity to some degree because of the sodium and chloride ions. Pure water incidentally is a really poor conductor, but water coming from are taps generally has many ionic impurities so I’d still be careful of using a hairdryer by the bath.

    • Photo: Suzanne McEndoo

      Suzanne McEndoo answered on 18 Mar 2012:

      Stuff that conducts well, like metal, has a lot of electrons floating about in it, free to move around, so they’re kinda like a liquid, but it’s not really an accurate way of thinking about electricity. Martin and Marcus are on the money.

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