Showing posts with label Energy Facts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Energy Facts. Show all posts

Electricity Facts

Author: Tamilpandiyan Posted under:
Electricity Facts


Enjoy a wide range of fun electricity facts for kids.
Electricity plays an important role in everyday life, learn more about static electricity, electric eels, circuits, lightning, electric shock, volts, amps and much more.




  • Modern society relies heavily on the convenience and versatility of electricity. It powers your microwave, helps light your house, lets you watch TV and so much more.
  • Electric current is measured in amperes (amps).
  • Electric potential energy is measured in volts.
  • Two positive charges repel each other, as do two negative charges. Opposite charges on the other hand attract each other.
  • When an electric charge builds up on the surface of an object it creates static electricity. You have probably experienced static electricity in the form of a small electric shock, which is what happens when the electric charge is quickly neutralized by an opposite charge.
  • Electric eels can produce strong electric shocks of around 500 volts for both self defense and hunting.
  • Electric circuits can contain parts such as switches, transformers, resistors and transformers.
  • A common way to produce electricity is by hydropower, a process that generates electricity by using water to spin turbines attached to generators.
  • The world’s biggest source of energy for producing electricity comes from coal. The burning of coal in furnaces heats boiler water until it becomes steam which then spins turbines attached to generators.
  • Lightning is a discharge of electricity in the atmosphere. Lightning bolts can travel at around 210,000 kph (130,000 mph), while reaching nearly 30,000 °C (54,000 °F) in temperature.
  • Electricity plays a role in the way your heart beats. Muscle cells in the heart are contracted by electricity going through the heart. Electrocardiogram (ECG) machines used in hospitals measure the electricity going through someone’s heart, when the person is healthy it usually shows a line moving across a screen with regular spikes as the heart beats.
  • You may have heard of direct current (DC) and alternating current (AC). The difference between the two is in the way the electrons flow. In DC electrons move in a single direction while in AC they change directions, switching between backwards and forwards. The electricity use in your home is AC while DC comes from sources that include batteries.
  • Back in the 1880’s there was even a ‘war of currents’ between Thomas Edison (who helped invent DC) and Nikola Tesla (who helped invent AC). Both wanted their system to be used with AC eventually winning out due to the fact that it is safer and can be used over longer distances.
  • Electric fields work in a similar way to gravity with an important exception being that while gravity always attracts, electric fields can either attract or repulse.
  • American Benjamin Franklin carried out extensive electricity research in the 18th century, inventing the lightning rod amongst his many discoveries. Lightning rods protect buildings in the event of lightning by conducting lightning strikes through a grounded wire.



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    Sound Facts

    Author: Tamilpandiyan Posted under:
    Sound Facts


    Learn some interesting facts about sound that you might not have known. Understand how sound waves come from vibrations and how your ears give you the ability to hear them.
    Find out what the speed of sound is, how sound relates to music, the meaning of acoustics and much more.



    • Sound comes from vibrations. These vibrations create sound waves which move through mediums such as air and water before reaching our ears.
    • Our ears vibrate in a similar way to the original source of the vibration, allowing us to hear many different sounds.
    • Dogs can hear sound at a higher frequency than humans, allowing them to hear noises that we can’t.
    • Sound is used by many animals to detect danger, warning them of possible attacks before they happen.
    • Sound can’t travel through a vacuum (an area empty of matter).
    • The speed of sound is around 767 miles per hour (1,230 kilometres per hour).
    • The loud noise you create by cracking a whip occurs because the tip is moving so fast it breaks the speed of sound!
    • When traveling through water, sound moves around four times faster than when it travels through air.
    • The scientific study of sound waves is known as acoustics.
    • Although music can be hard to define, it is often described as a pleasing or meaningful arrangement of sounds.
    • The sound of thunder is produced by rapidly heated air surrounding lightning which expands faster than the speed of sound.





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      Light Facts

      Author: Tamilpandiyan Posted under:

      Light GlobeLight Facts


      Brighten your science knowledge with our fun light facts for kids. Enjoy interesting trivia related to color, the speed of light, optics, sunlight, ultraviolet light and infrared light.
      Understand how electromagnetic radiation works and discover the many fascinating properties of light.


      • In physics, light refers to electromagnetic radiation. The light we normally talk about in everyday life refers to the visible spectrum (the part of the electromagnetic spectrum that the human eye can see).
      • Other animals can see parts of the spectrum that humans can’t. For example, a large number of insects can see ultraviolet (UV) light.
      • UV light can be used to show things the human eye can’t see, coming in handy for forensic scientists.
      • The wavelength of infrared light is too long to be visible to the human eye.
      • Scientists study the properties and behaviors of light in a branch of physics known as optics.
      • Isaac Newton observed that a thin beam of sunlight hitting a glass prism on an angle creates a band of visible colors that includes red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet (ROYGBIV). This occurred because different colors travel through glass (and other mediums) at different speeds, causing them to refract at different angles and separate from each other.
      • Light travels very, very fast. The speed of light in a vacuum (an area empty of matter) is around 186,000 miles per second (300,000 kilometres per second).
      • Light travels slower through different mediums such as glass, water and air. These mediums are given a refractive index to describe by how much they slow the movement of light. Glass has a refractive index of 1.5, meaning that lights travels through it at around 124,000 miles per second (200,000 kilometres per second). The refractive index of water is 1.3 while the refractive index of air is 1.0003, meaning that air only slightly slows down light.
      • Light takes 1.255 seconds to get from the Earth to the Moon.
      • Sunlight can reach a depth of around 80 metres (262 feet) in the ocean.
      • One of the many things Italian scientist Galileo Galilei worked on was telescopes, producing telescopes with around 30x magnification in some of his later work. These telescopes helped him discover the four largest moons orbiting Jupiter (later named the Galilean satellites).
      • Photosynthesis is a process that involves plants using energy from sunlight to convert carbon dioxide into food.



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        Energy Facts

        Author: Tamilpandiyan Posted under:
        Fun energy facts for kidsEnergy Facts


        Check out our fun energy facts for kids! Read about interesting types of energy such as solar, wind, kinetic, chemical, nuclear and geothermal.
        Learn important energy laws, what potential energy is, how joules and calories are used to measure energy and much more.

        • The word energy comes from the Greek word energeia.
        • Most types of energy are either a form of kinetic energy or potential energy.
        • Common examples include heat energy, elastic potential energy, chemical energy, sound energy, nuclear energy, geothermal energy and gravitational potential energy.
        • Kinetic energy refers to the energy an object has because of its movement. A car in motion has kinetic energy, as does a basketball when you pass or shoot it.
        • Energy can be transformed from one form to another. In lightning, electric potential energy transforms into light, heat and sound energy.
        • The law of conservation of energy states that energy can only be transformed, it can’t be created or destroyed.
        • You might have heard of Albert Einstein’s famous formula E = mc² (energy equals mass multiplied by the speed of light squared).
        • Food contains chemical energy which is used by living organisms such as animals to grow and reproduce. Food energy is usually measured in calories or joules.
        • Wind farms contain large numbers of wind turbines which are used to transform wind energy into a useful energy such as electricity. The use of wind power to generate electricity doubled between the years 2005 and 2008.
        • Plants use energy from sunlight during an important process called photosynthesis.
        • A person standing on a diving board above a swimming pool has gravitational potential energy.
        • During chemical reactions, chemical energy is often transformed into light or heat.
        • Stretched rubber bands and compressed springs are examples of elastic potential energy.
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