There are 3 main effects of electricity as,

• Heating effect
• Magnetic effect (Magnetism)
• Chemical effect

Let me explain how these 3 electric effects work and their benefits to us in the next sections.

Heating Effect of Electric Current

As this electric effect’s name imply, generation of heat due to electric current is known as the heating effect of electricity. Don’t want to believe it? Well, it’s time for a simple experiment.

Take 2 cm length of thin Nichrome wire coil and connect it to a battery and a key as in the image. Press the key for about 30 seconds. Now touch the Nichrome wire coil. What will you feel? Would it be warm or cool? Obviously it’ll be warm.

It’s clear that the wire is heated because the flow of electric current through the wire. When electrons pass through a wire, they can give some of their energy to the atoms in the wire and make them vibrate more faster than their original vibration, so that the wire is heated. We can define that phenomenon as the heating effect of electric current.

You can increase the heating effect of current. First let me tell how to reveal what factors we have to change for that.

Experiment to find factors affecting Heating Effect

1. Electric Current

First factor is how electric current increase can also improve the heating effect of current.

Take a small beaker half filled with water and cover it with a cardboard lid. Insert a 2 cm length Nichrome wire coil into the water as well as a stirrer. Then connect the ends of the Nichrome coil to a circuit with a battery and a switch.

Place a thermometer into the water, so that you can check the water temperature. Close the circuit with the help of the switch and stir the water. Keep it that way for like 5 minutes and then measure the temperature of water.

Repeat the same thing by using two batteries and three batteries.

When you add more batteries to above circuit, the electric current increases. Temperature readings will be low, high and very high in each stage in the above experiment respectively. It’s clear that as the electric current increases, the heating effect also increases, while a decrease in electric current also decreases the heating effect.

2. Resistance

The next factor is the resistance of the Nichrome wire coil. Let’s use the same apparatus with a slight modification.

Replace the 2 cm Nichrome coil with 4 cm Nichrome coil. Close the circuit. Stir the water. Measure the temperature of water at each battery stage. Now compare these temperature readings with the previous experiment’s temperature readings.

You’ll notice that the temperature of water is greater than that in the first experiment for all 3 stages. As you can figure it out, once the resistance of the Nichrome coil increases (as its length increases), it is clear that the heating effect too increases as the resistance increases.

Conductor Resistance by Length

Wires are electrical conductors same as metals. Let’s see how variation of resistance occur as a conductor’s length increases.

Connect the circuit as shown with 2 crocodile clips at A and B points with a battery and light bulb. You need 30 cm of gauge 30 Nichrome wire to complete the circuit.

1. Keep the crocodile clips closer on the wire and then notice the brightness of the light bulb.
2. Now move the clips further apart and compare the brightness of the light bulb with the above.

You’ll realize that the brightness of the light bulb increases, when the crocodile clips are closer and the brightness decreases as the clips move apart.

The brightness of the bulb decreases due to the resistance of the wire increases as the length increases, while the brightness of the bulb increases when the resistance of the wire decreases as the length decreases.

Conductor Resistance by Cross-section Area

Using the same circuit explained above, keep the crocodile clips on the wire 20 cm apart and notice the brightness of the light bulb. Now add another identical Nichrome wire between the crocodile clips so that the area of cross section is doubled.

Then compare the brightness of the light bulb with the previous brightness.

You can see here that the brightness of the bulb increases when using two Nichrome wires instead of one wire. The area of cross section of the conductor increases, when you use two wires. Hence the brightness of the bulb increases thanks to reduction of resistance.

Conductor Resistance by Material

It’s time to find how the resistance of the conductor depends on its material.

You can use the same circuit used in the last 2 experiments for this one. Apart the crocodile clips by 20 cm on the wire and observe the brightness of the light bulb. Switch the Nichrome wire with a Copper wire of the same length and same cross sectional area (gauge 30 in this case) and again observe the brightness of the bulb.

Brightness of the bulb is not the same in each case. Therefore you can come to the conclusion that the brightness of the light bulb changes, due to the resistance of the conductor differs based on the conductor material despite the length and area of cross section are the same.

3. Time of Passing Current

Yeah, the third factor is time. Repeat the either of experiment #1 or #2 by using the same Nichrome coil, Voltage supply while specifically varying the time of passing current. For example, previously it was after 5 mins, so measure the water temperature after 10-15 mins this time.

You can observe here that the water temperature increases as the time of passing current increases. Therefore it is clear that the heating effect of electric current too increases as the time of passing current increases.

Electric Energy Formula Looks Like …

You can calculate the electric energy using the below formula. It’s created based on the factors that affect the heating effect of electric current as discovered through a series of experiments explained above.

Heating Effect Benefits

As you may have guessed, heating stuffs is the benefit of heating effect of electric current. Simply you’re converting electrical energy to heat energy thanks to this effect of current.

• Fuse is a basic electrical part used to protect appliances. Fuse wire melts due to the heating effect of current when the current flowing through is exceeded than the rated amperage.
• Water heaters both in Kitchen & Bathroom uses this effect of current.
• Light bulbs also works due to the heating effect. Once the filament is heated by electricity, it starts glowing.
• All kinds of Irons such as Clothes Iron, Hair Irons, Soldering Irons all work by using the heating effect of current.

Here are some home appliances which use the heating effect of the current. Which of these do you have in your home? Have you used them before learning about this effect of current? Comment below.

1. Electric Kettle
2. Electric Cooker
3. Electric Oven
4. Toaster
5. Water Heater
6. Clothes Iron
7. Light Bulbs

It’s easy to get yourself hurt while using electricity, unless you know these handy electrical safety precautions.

Electricity and Magnetism (Magnetic Effect)

The next effect of electric current is Magnetism. In 1819, Hans Christian Oersted discovered the electricity has a magnetic effect. This experiment will help you understand the magnetic effect of electric current.

What you need,

• Compass
• Battery & Switch
• Wire

Create a circuit with a battery and a switch. You also need a compass for this experiment. Hold the wire on top of the compass needle. Now close the circuit with the switch for a couple of seconds. When current flows through the circuit, notice what happens to the compass needle.

Okay, let’s reverse the direction of electric current and then notice the what happens to the compass needle again.

In the first case, you will see the compass needle deflect towards a specific direction. Then in the second case of reverse direction of current also deflect the compass needle, but to the opposite direction to the first case.

Deflection of the compass needle changes due to the formation of a magnetic field. Therefore it is clear that a magnetism occurs around a conductor when an electric current flows through it.

Magnetic Field Around a Bar Magnet

Place a thin glass or a sheet of paper on top of a bar magnet.

Sprinkle a thin layer of iron filings onto the paper or glass sheet. Slowly and gently tap the paper or glass sheet. Notice what is happening to the iron filings.

There are number of force lines around the bar magnet due to its magnetic field. When you tap the glass sheet or the paper, the iron filings point themselves along the lines of flux by acting like tiny compasses. Therefore the arrangement of iron fillings as shown in the image indicate the lines of force.

Magnetic Field Near Electric Current Passing Coil

Okay, now you have seen what happens around a bar magnet. What happens around an electric current passing conductor or a coil in this case? In the first Oersted Experiment, you learned that there’s a magnetic effect of current.

So the same thing happens around a bar magnet also happens around an electric current passing coil.

When an electric current passes through a long coil or a solenoid, a magnetic field is formed around it as shown in the image. This electromagnetic field is equivalent to a magnetic field around a bar magnet.

Therefore, a current carrying long coil or a solenoid act as a bar magnet which are known as electromagnets. The polarities of both ends of the solenoid changes according to the direction of electric current passes.

Factors Affecting Magnetism Strength of Electromagnets

Like anything else in this world, strength of Electromagnetism depends on a number of factors. They are,

• Magnitude of the electric current
• Number of turns of the coil
• Changing the soft iron core

The following experiment will help you understand how each of these 3 factors affect the electromagnetic strength.

Take a small thread winding or any plastic tube, and wind 50 turns of insulated copper wire (30 swg) around the plastic tube. Here we’re using a Copper Wire because it flows electric current better and it doesn’t attract to magnets.

Cut a galvanized wire into 2 inch pieces and put a few pieces inside the plastic tube. Make sure to scrape the insulation of the wire pieces inside the tube using a sandpaper or a knife. Galvanized wire is usually made out of iron or steel which means, they get attracted to magnets.

Okay, let’s connect the copper coil to a battery and a switch and then close the circuit. Cool the electromagnet is live and let’s bring a couple of 1-2 paper clips chained together to one end of the galvanized wire pieces inside the tube. Bring more paper clips one by one and count the maximum number of paper clips that can be hung from the galvanized wire without falling.

1. Repeat the above experiment by adding more batteries.
2. Repeat again by increasing the number of turns up to 100.
3. Repeat once more by inserting more pieces of galvanized wires.

You will see that the amount of paper clips that can be hung is always greater than the first instance as explained above.

The amount of clips which can be hung increases due to the fact that the field strength of the electromagnet increases. The magnitude of the electric current flowing through the coil increases as you add more batteries.

Therefore it is clear that the field strength of the electromagnet increases when,

• The current flowing through the coil increases
• The number of turns of the coil increases
• The amount of soft iron core increases

Uses of Electro Magnetic Effect of Current

Similar to the way people use heating effect of current, the magnetic effect of current is mostly used in home electrical appliances. That doesn’t mean it isn’t used in the apparatus of the industrial field. Okay?

Electromagnets are used in following situations,

• Electric Bells
• Circuit Breakers
• Electromagnetic Door Locks
• Electromagnetic Relays
• Telephone Ear Piece
• Cranes in Steel Works & Scrap Yards

Electromagnets are also used to remove splinters of steel or iron in hospitals dealing with eye injuries. Would you like to learn how exactly a Electric Bell works? Jump onto next section!

Electrical Bell – How It Works …

When you push bell switch, it completes the circuit of the bell and an electric current starts flowing through the coil. The U shaped soft-iron core becomes an electromagnet as a result of that and the soft-iron is attracted towards the electromagnet and the hammer hits the gong.

When the hammer attached soft-iron rod is attracted towards the electromagnet, circuit becomes no more closed, but opened.

So that the current stops flowing and switches off the electromagnet. The soft-iron rod goes back to its original state so that contact is made again, because of this process the bell will ring continuously as long as current is flowing.

Force on Current Passing Conductor in a Magnetic Field

What do you think would happen, if you were to pass an electric current through a conductor when the same environment is a magnetic field? Following experiment will reveal the answer.

You need,

• Horseshoe Magnet (powerful)
• Thin Copper Wire
• Battery & Switch
• Thread

Hang the thin copper wire between the poles of the horseshoe magnet using the thread. Connect the wire to the battery and the switch.

Stage #1: Switch ON and note the behavior of the wire.

Stage #2: Change the direction of electric current. Repeat it.

Stage #3: Turn the horseshoe magnet to the other side, so the polarity changes. Repeat it.

Copper wire moves outward from the horseshoe magnet in the first stage. Then the both 2nd & 3rd stages reveal that the copper wire moves into the horseshoe magnet. The wire moves because the permanent magnet’s magnetic field reacts to the electromagnetic field in the wire.

You could remember the direction of this movement with the Fleming’s left hand rule.

Fleming’s Left Hand Rule Is …

Fleming’s left hand rule simply helps you find the direction of the reaction.

Hold the first, second and thumb fingers of your left hand so that they are at right angle to each other.

• First finger should points in the direction of the magnetic field. (From N to S)
• Rotate your hand around the first finger till second finger points in the direction of electric current.
• Now your thumb automagically points in the direction of wire movement.

You’ll realize the Fleming’s Left Hand Rule is correct, if you were to do the above steps in the previous experiment.

Direct Current Motor

A simple DC motor contains a rotatable coil in between the poles of a permanent curved magnet. The current from the battery flows through brushes to the commutator which is connected to the ends of the coil. The commutator is a copper ring cut into two halves.

By using Fleming’s left hand rule for the arm AB of the coil, you’ll find that the wire moves upward so that the coil turns clockwise.

When the arm CD of the coil comes near the North-pole of the magnet, the half ring (Commutator) connected to CD is in contact with the brush connected to the negative terminal of the battery. Therefore current is coming out towards you. This means that the force on CD is upwards and the coil (electromagnet) will turn clockwise continuously.

To make sure the coil turning round in the same direction you have to change the direction of the current in the coil. In other words, you have to reverse the current in the coil. Because of this, the current through the coil in a DC motor is reversed in every half turn by a commutator.

What would you think will happen if you were to reverse the terminals of the battery?

It would change the direction of the rotor rotates!

Chemical Effects of Electricity

Chemical reactions happens when electricity passes through various conducting liquids. This is known as chemical effects of electricity.

Yes, I specifically said “conducting liquids” because not all liquids conduct electricity. Let me show you if it’s the truth using below experiment.

What you need,

• Beaker with 2 electrodes
• Battery & Switch
• Light Bulb
• Crocodile Clips
• Distilled Water, NaCl Solution, Vinegar, Paraffin and HCL

Connect the circuit to two electrodes in the beaker. Pour one of the liquids into the beaker. Switch ON and note whether the bulb is glowing. Now remove the liquid and wash the apparatus properly.

Try the same with distilled water, NaCl solution, Vinegar, Paraffin and HCl.

You will experience that the bulb glows when the solution inside the beaker is NaCl solution, Vinegar or HCl. Bulb does not glow when the liquid either of these, distilled water and Paraffin. It is clear that the bulb will glow when liquids conduct electricity, and the bulb will not glow when they do not conduct electricity.

Few Points on Chemical Effects of Electric Current

• Substances which are producing solutions that conduct electricity are called electrolytes. Conductors dipped in electrolytes are called electrodes.
• Anode (+) is the electrode at which electric current enters to the electrolyte, while the electrode at which it leaves the electrolyte is called the cathode (-).
• Chemical reactions occur when electricity is passed through a liquid. These chemical reactions take place at the cathode and anode. Therefore chemical changes occur in the liquid too. This is known as electrolysis.
• Voltameter is the name given for the apparatus used for electrolysis, but it’s not a voltmeter. The voltameter is named according to the electrolyte and electrodes used. For example, if the electrodes are copper and the electrolyte is a solution of copper salt, the voltameter is named as a Copper Voltameter.

Electrolysis of Water: What Happens?

What you need,

• Beaker filled with water
• 2 Platinum Electrodes
• 2 Glass Tubes
• Small amount of Sulphuric Acid
• Battery, Switch & Wire

Pass electric current through water using a Water Voltameter with two platinum electrodes connected to a battery. Since water is a poor conductor of electricity, add a small amount of Sulphuric acid to make it an electrolyte.

Air bubbles appear at both (+) Anode and (-) Cathode tubes. If you were to collect and test these gases, you will find that they are Oxygen at the anode and Hydrogen at the cathode.

In other words, water has decomposed into Oxygen and Hydrogen, by the chemical effect of electric current. The volume of the gases produced are in the ratio of 1:2, because water is made up of 1 Oxygen atom and 2 Hydrogen atoms.

Electrolysis of Copper Sulphate: What Happens?

What you need,

• Copper Sulphate solution filled beaker
• 2 Copper Electrodes
• 2 Crocodile Clips
• Battery, Switch & Wire

Setup the Copper Voltameter as shown in image and connect it to the circuit. Label the 2 electrodes and find the mass of each (upto 0.1 gram), before putting them into the electrolyte. Now pass a 0.5 Ampere electric current for about 30 minutes. Remove the electrodes, dry them carefully and find the new mass of both electrodes.

You will realize that the anode has lost in mass while the cathode has gained in mass by an amount equal to the mass lost by the cathode. It is clear when an electric current flows through the Copper Voltameter a chemical reaction occurs at the electrodes.

Cathode has gained in mass while also getting covered with a shiny copper coat. Therefore, you can say the cathode is electroplated with copper.

Do you know, the mass of metal deposited on the cathode in the electrolysis process is proportional to the amount of electric current passed through the voltameter and the time of passing the current. The scientist Michael Faraday discovered this for the first time.

How exactly conduction of electricity occurs through an electrolyte?

Well, the chemical formula of Copper Sulphate is CuSO₄. Copper Sulphate splits into two charged particles Cu⁺⁺ and SO₄^2- when dissolved in water. These are known as Ions. The ions formed this way are the charge carriers for the passage of electricity through the electrolyte.

A Copper atom (Cu) becomes a positive Cu⁺⁺ ion by losing two electrons. Due to the fact that unlike charges attract each other, this Cu⁺⁺ ion drifts towards the negative cathode and gains two electrons to become a Copper atom again. This gets deposited on the cathode. The SO₄^– ion drifts towards the positive anode and completes the circuit.

Electroplating

Plating of one metal with another metal by electrolysis is known as electroplating. Let’s do another experiment using the same Copper Voltameter designed for previous experiment.

Replace the Copper cathode with a clean metal object such as a Door Key, Spoon etc. and pass a 0.5 Ampere of electric current for 30 minutes. Take out the object and have a look at it. You will recognize that the metal object is electroplated with Copper.

In a similar way to Copper plating in the above experiment, if the spoons were used as the Cathode of voltameter containing silver electrolyte, they can be silver plated. Chromium plating for bicycles and cars is also achieved using a similar method, but with a Chromium Salt electrolyte.

Uses of Electrolysis

As with other 2 effects of electric current, this effect too has a bunch of uses. Here are 3 benefits of chemical effects of electric current.

1. Electroplating

Most common Kitchen appliances are Nikel plated. Vehicle parts are Chromium plated to protect them from rusting.

2. Refining of Copper

Copper transferred to the Cathode is totally pure in Copper plating, even if the Anode may have been made of impure Copper. This process is used to produce Pure Copper for electric cables.

3. Extraction of Sodium and Aluminium

These metals are obtained by electrolysis of common salt for Sodium and Aluminium Oxide for Aluminium.

You know, electrolysis is used in the beauty industry as well as for hair removal which is another benefit.

I know it’s been a really long post, but now you know the main 3 effects of electric current, their uses and how they work at the end of it with so much details. Did something important missed in this article? Comment below and also consider sharing with your friends and teachers.

Read this science piece here 3 Effects of Electric Current → Heating, Magnetism & Chemical Effects on Smart Science Pro.

If you’re wondering what happened to that fun game, yeah, all we had to do was cut-down our extra electrical usage, Or let’s call that wastage. In return, three of us can divide the remaining money after the month’s Electricity Bill was settled between me, my sister and brother.

Although money was quite a nice motivator to stay on mission, I learned a lot about how monthly bill was created, how many watt hours for a single Unit, common ways people waste electricity, safety rules to follow and so on …

Let’s dive into those lifesaving electrical safety precautions and rules I promised earlier. You probably don’t know or didn’t care, but keep these somewhere in your mind.

1. Don’t Overkill, Or Underkill?

Your safety in using electricity is ultra important as you’re not that fast to beat a potential electrocution. Fuse is annoying, but it protects the electrical appliances.

When replacing a blown fuse, make sure you strictly use a fuse with exact same ampere value. Not something exceeding nor something below the blown fuse. If you exceed, you’re breaking this electrical safety rule and risk damaging the whole device. On the other hand, if it’s below, you simply create yourself a loop of fuse switching.

That might be a little fun, if you’re into time loop movies. Haha!

2. Broke The Plug?

This electrical safety precaution can REALLY save your life, I’ve seen many construction workers use just 2 wires without a plug. This procedure is freaking dangerous and a cool way to die by electrocution.

Do not enter wires directly in to the plug socket.

If you or someone else accidentally touches the wires while connecting it to the plug socket, you get hurt.

3. Please Don’t Ignore Earth

Electrical appliances with metal covers or any cover made from a material that conduct electricity require the Earth connection. Not having it or it being broken can put you in danger, if something goes wrong.

Now go and check whether your appliances such as Computer, Microwave oven have a working Earth connection.

4. Regular CheckUps Are Useful

It doesn’t matter whether you have the best Trip Switch, if it doesn’t work as expected. World is so complex and anything could go wrong anytime. Trip Switch might have worked last month, but not this month.

Therefore regular Trip Switch checkups can make you confident you’re safe with another way. Now you aren’t doing this by getting yourself electrocuted stupidly. There’s a Test Button in every Trip Switch these days to make it easy. Just press the Test Button every couple of weeks.

Expected outcome is: Trip Switch goes down disconnecting the connection.

5. OFF, Attach, ON

No wonder you’ve heard people say “Ready . Aim . Fire” and the variation “Ready . Fire . Aim”, but you can’t do that with electricity unless you ignore electrical safety precautions. You might attach your phone charger while the switch is ON, but it can go wrong.

In safety standpoint, you should always OFF the switch before fitting any plugs to the base. Same happens for extension cords.

6. Did The World Stop?

You and I know our world stops awfully when there’s a power failure. However, world really doesn’t stop, but our minds say there’s nothing much you can do without electricity. Well, that’s incorrect!

Anyway, while you wait for the power to come back painfully, don’t forget to disconnect the plugs and switch OFF any lights. Common reason is if a heavy current or a low voltage supply comes when the power is back, it can harm your electrical devices.

While I’ve seen the low voltage thing myself, I haven’t experienced the heavy current thing yet. How about you?

7. Fire In The Wire

Badly completed house wiring and unexpected damages to wires plus electrical devices can consume high electrical current and then start a fire in the wires due to one of the effects of electric current. That’s because the wires are meant to supply specific range of current, not something exceeding than that.

In a situation like this, you best move is to disconnect the power supply through Main Switch as quickly as possible.

Electric Fire can cause you serious trouble unless stopped it the right way. It can also ruin your house wiring and electrical parts completely. Rewiring is a pain in the whole body. So what do you want? Following this safety rule or simply welcome the trouble? Yep! I’d signup for the safety rule.

8. Know Something Called, Disconnect?

When electrical appliances are not in use, make it a habit to disconnect their plugs from the plug base. Who knows what happens when you’re out … If it’s lightning and you’re not at home to unplug your favorite Gaming PC, but by the time you arrive, your house has been hit by a lighting strike.

You know it’s so simple these electrical safety precautions, but they do really help. Always Think Ahead, so you don’t just skip the safety rules over laziness.

9. You . Rubber Slippers . Friends

People who care their safety in using electricity makes themselves insulators by wearing dry rubber slippers. Even if you touched the Live Wire you don’t get yourself electrocuted this way.

However, if the current is HEAVY, know that rubber slippers can’t protect you.

When using appliances like electric iron, make sure to stand on a rubber carpet or wear rubber slippers.

10. Don’t Be an Elec-Gesturician

No one asked you to be the Know-It-All person, so if you don’t know how to be an electrician, then don’t do that. Doing this and that by guessing is fine for other stuffs, but not with electricity. There are many pitfalls unless you know what you’re doing.

For necessary maintenance and complex troubleshooting, always get the service of a trained electrician.

11. It’s Not a Good Time To Wet Yourself

Water and electricity go along, but not for the good, but for the bad. I mean don’t get yourself wet while touching wires Or when you are maintaining house wiring. It’s also good to wear rubber slippers.

12. Leeching Every Blood Drop is Bad

You know what, a Leech can only suck all the blood inside an animal, not more. This same thing happens with electrical part you often use and that is electrical outlet or plug socket. You might have all the electrical devices in the world with you.

However, you can only fit as much as the electrical outlet is meant to handle.

In other words, do not connect a bunch of electrical appliances consuming heavy amounts of electricity to the same plug socket using a multiplug or an extension cord. If you do, you’re just trying to beat the incoming supply by a huge demand and that’s becoming a huge problem in a flash.

You have Circuit Breakers with fixed ampere ratings. You can’t surpass that limit. In an absolutely wild case, where there’s no CBs setup, you’ll continue to enjoy the device attaching rampage till the wires start to overheat and fire begins.

So don’t be the stupid leech!

13. Main Switch Is For …

Oh sucks! Your room’s plug socket worked fine yesterday, but it’s not working today. No no! Don’t jump into unscrew it right away. Turn off the Main Switch, so you can kiss even the Live Wire while checking things, Or else your tongue will explode!

So, remember this safety rule to disconnect the power directly from Main Switch whenever you maintain the plug sockets, light adapters etc.

14. Insulated Stuffs

Every house should have a toolkit such as screwdrivers, testers etc. but they should not have broken covers. Same goes for electrical appliances. If the cover is broken, you could feel the taste of electricity running inside you.

This cover is insulated meaning no electric current will flow even if you touched it.

15. Yo, Stop Tripping!

While Test Button lets you manually trip it, same can happen automatically.

If the Trip Switch opens automatically, first open the Main Switch and now you close the Trip Switch. After that, close the Main Switch.

In the unlikely event where the Trip Switch opens again, it’s time for some troubleshooting. This happens due to a fault somewhere and the solution isn’t keep closing the Trip Switch.

Unplug all the electrical appliances connected via plug sockets. Then repeat the same steps above. It happens again? Now you could try opening each Circuit Breaker and repeating the same steps till you find which branch causes the problem.

Once you find that, remove all appliances attached and Switch OFF any lights. Rinse & repeat. Still happening? Now would be a good time to say yourself, “Oh, I’m Screwed”, because you need to get the help of an electrician at this point.

16. Wooden Ladders Don’t Tingle

While you can use metals with insulated covers to avoid potential electrocutions, there are other ways to do the same. You don’t need a steel or metal ladder to reach a wire or circuit in the ceiling, wooden ladders can be used for that.

As wood also does not conduct electricity, it can protect you.

17. Light The Tester

When troubleshooting connection or sockets, always use a Tester to check the Live connection. Tester will light if the wire it touches is the Live Wire. And you can use that same Tester whenever you want to fit a 2-pin plug to 3-pin socket.

18. Colors Can be Your Foe

Different countries have different color codes for the 3 wires namely Live, Neutral and Earth. So if you’re dealing with house wiring, this is one of the most important electrical safety rule to keep in mind.

Not aware of the color codes? Then you face the dangers of touching the Live Wire thinking that’s Neutral. Again you might connect the Live Wire with a Neutral Wire which can short-circuit the circuit causing the Circuit Breaker to open.

19. It’ll Throw The Evil Within

There is an electronic component known as Capacitor which can store electricity. Touching both pins of a charged capacitor will unleash the stored electricity through your body to earth. Yep! this is nothing to fear depending on the capacitor you touch.

However, there are bigger capacitors which can be enough to hurt you.

Then similar to that, CRT TVs and Monitors have a tube which charge once you plug it. If you see CRT TV or a Monitor unwrapped, don’t just go and touch the tube. This is more dangerous than a simple capacitor hurt. Therefore, let the charge to lose for a couple of minutes before touching the tube.

20. Not Big Enough

Sometimes your phone charger pins are not big enough, other times it might be the case where your multiplug holes are bigger. Whatever the reason, loosely attached plugs can spark.

You could lose your phone or the charger, if the plug is not tightly attached.

Here I took your phone charger as a quick example, this can occur in any electrical device which has a plug.

21. Grounded Earth

Broken Earth connection makes your Trip Switch useless instantly. Earth wire should fit to the Earth Rod which is properly dumped in the ground. Should I say the number of electrical hazards you get to face, when Trip Switch doesn’t work?

22. Why Electrocute Your Bed? … When Lightning

There were couple of incidents in my city where young boys found dead by electrocuted. Do you know what all of them did before the death?

Every boy was in his bed charging as well as using the smartphone while it was raining, thundering and lightning.

You might be in a bed or a chair that doesn’t conduct electricity, but the plug socket conducts electricity. So when a lightning strike hits your house, it can hurt you. Lightning strike is not as a quick electrocution, it’s much more dangerous.

Avoid charging as well as using phone, tabs, laptops or other handheld devices when lightning even you’re in the bed or sitting on a chair.

Hey, it’s over! What electrical safety precautions you knew, but didn’t bother to follow?

Read this science piece here 22 Lifesaving Electrical Safety Precautions You Probably Never Knew on Smart Science Pro.

It is important to have a basic knowledge of these parts to make your life easier when it comes to using electricity the hassle-free way.

In countries such as Sri Lanka, India, Nigeria and many others have 230v basic electricity power supply to consumers from the national electricity grid which is an alternating current (AC) with a 50Hz frequency. However, the Voltage and Frequency can be different for other countries, for example United States has 120v electric power supply with a 60Hz frequency.

The electricity supply is given by a service cable consisting two wires known as Live wire (L) and Neutral wire (N) according to the Voltage & Frequency regulations of your country. Now let’s focus on a few electrical parts often you can see in your home.

Basic Household Electrical Parts & Materials

1. Electric Meter

First in the list of common electrical parts you see everyday is the Electric meter. It is used by the national electricity grid to measure the units of electrical energy used in your household circuits. Yeah, that’s how they find the amount you need to pay for your electricity bill per month.

Kilowatt hour (kWh) is an energy unit.

Disc & Digital Electric Meters

Suppose you have a 1000W electrical appliance in your house and you have to use this appliance for one hour everyday. Then the electrical energy consumed is one kilowatt-hour per day. Electric Meter calculate this consumed electric energy through the circular disc fixed in it.

When you use electricity, this circular disc starts to rotate which records the number of electrical energy units used by you. If you look closer inside the meter, you can see there are digits moving at the same time when the circular disc rotates.

Electricity grid company uses that meter readings to create your monthly electricity bill every 30 days or so.

1 kWh = Amount of Watt x Number of hours used / 1000
1 Unit = 1kWh

2. Fuse

Few Types of Fuses

A fuse is an electrical part which you can’t see as it’s always inside a plug or an electrical device such as TV.

Basically fuses are used to protect electrical appliances, parts and electronic components from potential damage due to a high current – Ampere – flowing in the circuit.

This electrical part is a small length thin wire created using lead and tin alloy. These days fuse wire is commonly seen in a glass tube for easy use. There are different fuse wires with the ability to conduct certain maximum currents such as 3A, 5A, 13A and 15A.

Couple of Fuse Holders

Yes, that’s for the domestic electrical circuits, fuses for the commercial systems can go as high as 300,000A. When designing the circuit diagram the circuit designers use various symbols. Do you know which symbol represents a fuse?

It’s this symbol ⏛ where you strike a small rectangle box that represent the electrical part protecting your electrical devices – Fuse!

This is the Fuse Symbol

Curious on how exactly a simple wire do the protection duty without the muscles?

When electrical current flows through the circuit exceeding the rated ampere value of the fuse, the thin wire melts down (fuses) thanks to heating effect of electric current and in return makes the closed-circuit an open-circuit. As you already guessed, open-circuits never flow electrical current, hence the current flow is cut down suddenly while protecting the appliance and other electrical parts & components.

In other words, fuse is kind of a superhero which saves the day by sacrificing itself for the greater good.

This is why when the fuse goes down, you need to replace same value and same size of fuse. This is also a safety rule. Want to know more electrical safety rules?

When a fuse goes down, it’s gone forever. Since replacing fuses seem annoying, a new electrical part was created to avoid such complications.

This component is a miniature circuit breaker and it looks like a switch consisting various ampere values. Circuit breakers function similar to fuses. In the event of an exceeding current flow than the rated ampere value, the switch opens and stops the current, instead of melting anything or dying forever. The circuit can be connected again by closing the switch.

3. Distribution Box

Distribution Box Includes These Electrical Parts

Distribution box is another easy to notice electrical part in your home. It consists 3 more electrical parts, namely,

• Main Switch (MCCB – Moulded Case Circuit Breaker)
• Trip Switch (RCCB – Residual Current Circuit Breaker)
• Circuit Breakers (CBs )

As the name implies, Distribution Box simply distributes the electric supply to sections of the house. These sections contain light circuits [Light Switches + Light Bulbs], fan circuits [Fan Regulator + Fan] and plug socket circuits.

In each of these circuits the Live Wire is connected to a circuit breaker which will be explained in a moment.

4. Main Switch (MCCB)

You know every house or commercial building has a distribution box which is where the Main Switch is located. It’s the first electrical part receiving the electricity from the electric meter inside your house. Therefore the Main Switch is the responsible part to take down the electricity throughout the house as required.

Often useful while upgrading house wiring and when thundering & lightning to disconnect the supply.

Single & Three-phase Main Switches

There are 2 wires inside the cable coming from the electric meter namely Live Wire and Neutral Wire. These 2 wires are then connected to the Main Switch. While the main switch is OFF the electric supply is stopped by disconnecting the two wires.

Yes, you read it right.

Remember, current flows only when the circuit is closed, hence the current flows specifically when the Main Switch is ON. That’s why you need to OFF the Main Switch to disconnect the power. Quite the other way around than the usual “switch on”. Right?

5. Trip Switch (RCCB)

Different Trip Switch Brands

Remember the fuse I explained earlier? Just like a fuse, protecting people and electrical appliances is the primary goal of the Trip Switch, an electric switch designed to interrupt a circuit suddenly & automatically.

However, it’s not a fuse, but a type of circuit breaker. This electrical part’s common name is Trip Switch while the technical term is RCCB – Residual Current Circuit Breaker. Trip Switch is there to help you multiple times compared to a fuse.

Electric current coming from the Main Switch connects to the Trip Switch via Live & Neutral Wires.

If there is a fault in any of the circuits in the house this switch opens (Trip) automatically and disconnects the power supply. For example, when someone gets electrocuted or when your house become a target of a lightning attack. Since the Trip Switch is so useful, it comes with a Test Button letting you check if it works as expected.

Working Principle of RCCB

How It Works – Trip Switch!

Residual Current Circuit Breakers work by comparing the current entering the appliance via the live wire with the current leaving the appliance through the neutral wire. This difference in electrical current is called the residual current. RCCB Tripping current commonly 30mA (0.03A) or 100mA (0.1A), depending on the country it will change.

RCCB consists of,

• Primary coil
• Secondary coil
• Trip coil

Always Primary coil and Secondary coil will sense the load current (IL and IN). When the circuit is OK the IL=IN, then trip coil will not get any current (IL-IN=0A) to energize the trip coil.

When the circuit Not OK the IL>IN, it means the trip coil will get some amount of current (IL-IN=3A). If IL-IN exceeding the RCCB tripping current, Trip coil energized and RCCB immediately trip.

It can happen due to a fault in the circuit Or when earth leakage current exceeds the value of tripping current of the RCCB.

6. Wall Switches

No wonder you have switched the switches thousands of times. Wall Switches are among the top consumed electrical parts list in any place that uses electricity.

Single, Two & Three Gang Wall Switches

Switches are used in light circuits and plug socket circuits to connect or disconnect the circuit according to the will of the individual.

There are different types of wall switches such as Push Button, Press Button, Toggle and Rocker while the latter is the universal light switch used on most houses these days. Then there are single, double, triple, quadruple as well as quintuple wall switches.

Electricians can attach multiple lights to a single switch as long as the current rating of the switch is not exceeded, for example all outdoor lights can be attached to a single switch letting you light up them at once easily.

7. Plug Sockets

Plug sockets are used to get electric supply for appliances like computers, electrical heaters, televisions, refrigerators and whatever electrical device you’ve been using.

Plug Sockets With Various Types of Sockets

Do you know that Plug Base is another name used to refer Plug Sockets? if you didn’t, now you know!

There are plug sockets to get 5A, 13A or 15A current. Similar to wall switches, there are different types of Plug Sockets based on pin type such as two-pin plugs and three-pin plugs where the 3rd pin is for Earth Wire. To get these connections, electricians use two core wires and three core wires.

Plug Sockets come with a switch for extra protection, so you don’t get electrocuted or harm your appliances while plugging. For safety, you need to OFF the switch before plugging any plugs.

8. Electrical Wires & Cables

Electrical wires are used to transport electric current, be that from electric meter to distribution box to power outlets (Plug sockets), all things  get the supply through various electrical wires.

There are 3 types of electrical wires,

1. Live Wire
2. Neutral Wire
3. Earth Wire

Each of the above wires contain different color codes depending on the country and in here Sri Lanka we have following wire color codes.

Wires with Red or Brown colors are used for live connections, so those are the Live Wires. Then the wires with Blue or Black colors are used for neutral connections, so they are the Neutral Wires. If you see a Green or Yellow-Green wire, remember they are used for earth connections, which means those are the Earth Wires.

Household circuits are designed by using various types of wires as explained above. Electrical cable is formed when all these 3 wires or at least the crucial 2 [Live & Neutral] wires are insulated with rubber or plastic cover. Here are more important details about electrical wires.

9. Two Way Switches

Two way switches are the last electrical part explained in this article. It’s a bit different than the normal wall switches in terms of how it operates.

These switches are used to operate a light from two different places. Normal wall switches only has 2 connections, while Two Way switches got 3 connections.

Couple of ways Two Way switches are used,

• When you need to ON and OFF a light bulb in a staircase from top as well as bottom.
• To ON and OFF a light bulb outside your door, when you go out at night.

For example, in the 2nd instance, you ON the switch while you inside the house and then you lock the door once outside. Now you want to OFF the switch, how do you do that? Talk to Barry Allen to get the powers of going through matter? Nope!

You setup a Two Way switch outside the house and you OFF it there.

Wrapping Up The Common House Electric Circuit

Okay, this section wraps up how all the electrical parts explained above is used in the common house electric circuit.

It all starts with the place where the electricity is generated. Then the electricity is transmitted through high power service cables. In Sri Lanka, first level is 66,000 voltage, then it steps down to 33,000 voltage and then again to 11,000 voltage.

From the 11K voltage, Three-phase starts which is what you usually see in the road. It contains 3 Live Wires and 1 Neutral Wire. Three-phase is the reason why your house can face a power cut while some of the houses in your block or area don’t.

Main wire coming from the electric pole first is connected to the electric meter in your house. From the electric meter the Main Wire is connected to the Main Switch and then through the Trip Switch to the Circuit Breakers in the Distribution Box. Circuits to various sections of the house starts from the Circuit Breakers.

Here’s a common house wiring circuit.

Click On Image To View Full HD Size

Did you enjoy this article? It took me a while to create all the images such as the above house wiring circuit created with the electrical parts explained above. So, I’ll be glad to have you share this article or images with your friends and students.

Read this science piece here Basic Electrical Parts & Components of House Wiring Circuits on Smart Science Pro.

Actually sound is a wave, I explained it earlier on a post where I wrote about mechanical waves and electromagnetic waves. Ya! I know it wasn’t deep enough for you to realize the nature of sound waves. These waves belong to the mechanical longitudinal wave type and have so many properties and abilities.

There must be a some kind of vibration to form a sound.

Reflection of Sound Waves

It is inevitable for you to quickly realize how light waves reflect, because it is a thing that you can see from your eyes. What you see through eyes can be deposited in your mind better than what you hear with your ears. That’s why many times, photographs are used to teach small children effectively.

Similar to light waves, the sound waves too show properties of reflection.

Reflection is the change of direction of a wave. Suppose you have a mirror in your hand and you keep it under the sunlight and point it towards another direction. You’d see the light rays struck in the mirror and then jump to the direction you pointed the mirror.

Here’s a quick strategy to prove the reflection property of sound.

Take 2 water pipes with same length and diameter. Get 2 card boards and keep them together to form the English letter ‘T’, but make sure to keep some distance between the card boards. Now keep the 2 water pipes to form an angle as it is in the following diagram.

Play or make a sound from one water pipe while listening to it from other pipe. You’ll hear the sound on other side clearly.

Propagation of Sound

Sound wave propagation means the traveling of sound from one place to another. As you know a medium is required for all the mechanical waves, so sound waves too. Vacuum is not a place where sound can propagate. Not sure …?

Let me tell you a way to find it exactly. Here are the things you need.
– Electric Bell (Battery or other)
– Vacuum Pump

Set the bell to ring. Now remove the air inside the electric bell using the vacuum pump. Make sure you fit the vacuum pump tight so that air cannot go inside again.

First you’ll hear the bell sound, once you start to remove the air, the bell sound also starts to become slow and unclear. After removing all the air you won’t hear the bell sound anymore. So we can conclude sound waves cannot play in a vacuum.

I love inspirational facts, mind-blowing science theories and crazy numbers. Here are 3 number facts about sound waves.

• Sound velocity in air is 330ms^-1
• And in water it goes up to 1,461ms^-1
• In steel it further goes higher to 5,000ms^-1.

Isn’t it a crazy number for steel?

Actually why numbers become higher for solid and liquid states? Air particles are not tightly packed together, but solid particles are tightly packed together. Therefore vibration will become faster because particles are near each other.

What is Echo of Sound?

You learned that the sound can reflect in the previous section of this post. Echo is something that happens due to reflection of sound. Echo means the reflected sound that you can hear after a time lag from the original sound.

This doesn’t mean you can hear each and every reflected sound or echo. Because the sounds you hear remains in the ears for 1/10 of a second. If the reflected sound comes quickly before 1/10 of a second, you will not notice the echo.

If the echo comes after above time frame, you can hear it as an echo.

Now let me do a quick calculation to reveal you the minimum distance between the source of sound and the reflection surface to hear the echo properly.

Velocity of sound in air → 330ms^-1
Distance in 1 second → 330m
Distance in 1/10 of a second → 330m x 1/10
Minimum distance between source an surface → 33m / 2 = 16.5m

So lets round off the minimum distance to 17m. This is an accurate number for hearing a clear echo of a sound. There are different frequencies for sound waves, but the human ears got a limit between 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz. Therefore you can’t hear 10 Hz sounds nor the 20,100 Hz.

Do you know dogs can hear higher frequencies than 20K Hz. Such sound waves are known as UltraSound Waves.

You cannot hear the echo if the reflection of sound comes before finishing the initial sound in your ears. Instead of that you’d feel the initial sound is extended. Even though you can’t hear the echo, No … let’s say you can’t identify that echo.

Okay, let me call that incident or phenomenon as the Reverberation.

Sound waves reflect steadily on a smooth surface, but it doesn’t do so on a rough surface. That’s a reason for minimization of echo and reverberation.

So, What Are the Uses of Echo?

It’s time to talk about the benefits of echo. Usually echos are used to calculate the depth of the sea bed from the surface of water. In addition to that, there are few other uses of echo.

1. Identify parts of sunken ships, submarines, planes and other sunken stuffs.
2. Find fish shoals in deep water.
3. Avoid interferences for under water vehicles such as submarines.
4. Detect places which are rich with oil.

As all other stuffs in science, there is an instrument to use echo as Echo Sounder. It’s the apparatus which helps to find above stuffs easily.

These instruments can be seen in ships. Echo sounder can send an UltraSonic Sound wave from the surface of water to sea bed. Then this sound will reflect back to the surface of water after some time. We already know the speed of sound in sea water and the time taken to reach water surface can be measured.

Finally you can find the depth of sea bed or any other distance with a simple calculation.

Bats are using echolocation to skip the obstacles in their way when flying. Bats who use this ability can’t see properly. Therefore they send ultrasound waves and listen to the echo to detect trees when flying.

Characteristics of Sound

You hear various sounds as soon as you wake up till you sleep. Girls do have a soft voice while boys do have a rough voice. Then there are music notes which are high. These things happen because of the characteristics of sound.

When I explained you the characteristics of animals such as vertebrates and invertebrates, I listed many. However, there are only 3 characteristics of sound.

• Pitch
• Loudness
• Quality

Pitch of a Sound

There are few parts of a wave which I explained you in a previous post. One such part is known as Frequency. The pitch of a sound relies on the frequency of that sound wave. If the frequency is high, the pitch is high and the sound is sharp.

If the sound you hear is rough, it means its frequency is low and pitch too.

Loudness of a Sound

Do you have a drum or desk near you? Beat it slowly and listen to the sound. Beat it again hard and notice the sound again.

Simply the first sound wasn’t loud enough, but the second sound had a high loudness. Loudness of a sound depends on the energy coming as sound waves to your ears.

Do you have a Violin? It has strings which are stretched well. If you want to make a sound with guitar, you have to pluck the string with some amount of energy. If the pluck is harder the outputted sound is loud.

Notice the movement of string when vibrating hard. The height between the crest and trough is higher if you see it as a wave. You know that height is known as Amplitude of the wave. Remember higher amplitude will result in a loud sound.

Sound waves occurred from the source continuously loses its energy when vibrating for a long distance. So the amplitude of the sound also decreases. Therefore the loudness of the sound also decreases.

If you can increase the amplitude of a sound, it’ll have a good loudness.

Quality of a Sound

If two notes have same loudness and pitch, you can feel the difference of those 2 notes by quality of sound. Suppose you have a Violin and Keyboard and you play the same note in both instruments.

You can feel the sound is different in both instruments even the same note was played. That’s the quality of sound and the waves of the 2 instruments also  different as the sound. Sound wave patterns can be tracked with an instrument called CRO – Cathode Ray Oscilloscope.

Once this instrument connected to the playing instrument, the wave pattern will be displayed in the screen.

Musicians use this characteristic of sound to tune their musical instruments.

Read this science piece here Nature And Characteristics of Sound Waves on Smart Science Pro.

Living organisms! Who are these living organisms? So far I have written a lot about biology stuffs here on Smart Science Pro than physics or chemistry. I hope you have a good understanding about living organisms if you had time to read other science pieces.

Living organisms are the things that has a life, these things perform various vital activities with the help of vital factors which is required for their existence. Carl Linnaeus was the first scientist to introduce an efficient criteria for classifying all the living organisms on our planet.

What’s Inside of Life?

According to the natural classification of life, you have the chance of seeing 3 groups of living beings as animals, plants and microorganisms. There is a basic unit of structure and function to all living things. It is known as a cell.

Collection of cells form something we called as tissues. Tissues are presented in all multicellular organisms. Tissues together forms various organs such as eyes and these organs define various body systems of an organism. Every thing from a tiny cell to a body system requires some form of energy to continue its life, functions and growth.

The energy needed for the existence of living organisms are taken by vital factors. So let me explain each of these vital factors with simple experiments for you to digest things smarter.

#4 Vital Factors Essential For Life

I’m asking it from you, what are these 4 vital factors? If you already know them, that’s good. Okay, have you had some time for a picnic? Ya! I’m sure you always have lots of time for such interesting journeys than you spend for learning in the school.

I remember the first time I visited a Zoo which is full of wild animals that you can’t see in the concrete jungle. 😉 Our environment is full of animals, you don’t need to hit for a Zoo to see animals around you. Just visit a pond, fish tank or something like that. Stare at tree tops for a while to see some birds and so on.

All these animals require these vital factors to survive the living.

Air is a Vital Factor

Turtles belong to vertebrates group under classification of animals naturally. Have you seen turtles in your pond or in the Zoo? Turtles come out of the water after swimming for a bit under the water. Then they go under water again and follow the same procedure continuously.

What caused the turtles to come out like that? Actually, you know the answer already. Turtles come out of the water if the amount of air is not enough for the respiration.

There are people who sell innocent small chickens. These small chickens are kept inside boxes which have small circle holes. Then have you seen dog transport boxes have square holes. All these holes are there because animals require air always to perform vital activities.

Mountain climbers and divers have to wear special suites not because they want to be fancy, because they don’t need to have respiratory issues while enjoying the party! That’s why the suite has oxygen cylinders.

Above examples alone prove the validity of air as a vital factor for animal life, but what about the plant life?

You have heard a lot for this short time you’ve lived, but have you ever heard plants on moon? Nope! Not because moon doesn’t like to grow plants. Moon’s atmosphere does not have oxygen and it resulted in a bad atmosphere for the existence of life there.

All these backup the Air as a vital factor for all living beings.

Water is a Vital Factor

When it comes to water, it’s our life blood of all time. You or me cannot survive without water. In the photosynthesis factors post, I have explained that you cannot design an experiment to prove the necessity of water for the process of photosynthesis due to the death of plant as soon as you remove water from it.

It is same for all living beings. We all die after losing water from our bodies.

Water is a vital factor and it helps to purify your body, digest what you eat and excrete what is being digested. Those are few vital activities supported by water for animals. Food production of a plant is related to photosynthesis and water is required for plants to provide fruits you eat today.

Foods are a Vital Factor

As humans we have lot of interests over other animals. I always love to have a lunch with a chicken fried rice, but it’s not the only food which I love to eat. I know you too have many foods that you are passionate to have around the week.

Due to this interest, sometimes we forget why we eat foods. Frankly, it is not to play with our interests but to get the energy required to run our body systems continuously. Various foods have different types of nutrients which are the fuels of our body.

You can live 1-2 days normally without having food, but you can’t survive that much longer usually without drinking water. Anyway, Food is a vital factor for the existence of life on earth.

Every food chain starts with a producer which is always going to be a green plant. These plants are known as Autotrophic plants due to their ability of producing foods with the help of environment. All other animals and microorganisms are relying on green plants

Sunlight is a Vital Factor

Who doesn’t like to spend an hour in the morning sunlight? If you tell me to choose one between Hot and Cold, I’d definitely choose Hot because I love heat, flame and yellow color too. 😉 Therefore, I always like sunlight too.

Do you know our planet earth will be a cold hell if it wasn’t for the sun’s light? Yes! That’s true. You feel cold at the night. Right? Sun goes to the other hemisphere at night time for your country.

Additionally the sunlight energy is another factor for photosynthesis process. That fact alone proves sunlight is a vital factor for plant life. Want to test it? If you have a green backyard, then I assume you have grass in the floor. Now cover some grass leaves with a bucket or a coconut shell. Keep it same for few days and observe what happened to covered grass leaves.

You’d see the green color of the grass turned to yellow color.

Scientists have mentioned planets like Neptune shows properties of a very cold atmosphere. Neptune is away from sun’s exposure a lot and a lot and another lot. That’s why the planet is so cold. Suppose the sun’s gone for forever, what would happen to our planet earth? It’ll be cold same as Neptune where life couldn’t survive as it is now.

Therefore, sunlight also a vital factor for all living organisms.

As a summary, the 4 vital factors required for the existence of life on earth are,

• Air
• Water
• Food
• Sunlight

Read this science piece here Vital Factors Required For Living Organisms on Smart Science Pro.

I have explained you 2 types of waves in a previous post. It was about transverse waves and longitudinal waves. Amazing thing is those 2 wave types belong to something that I’m going to explain now.

There are energy types which transfer as light waves and sound waves. You already know the necessity of a medium for sound waves. However, the light waves do not require any medium to travel. Heat waves are another example for that type of waves.

These waves which does not require a medium can travel even through a vacuum. Do you know satellites and space stations send information as these types of waves. Okay, finally let me tell it, they are known as Electromagnetic Waves.

Types of Waves by Medium

Previously we classified the waves by considering the movement of the particles. And now you’re going to find out the 2 types of waves according to the media of propagation.

1. Mechanical Waves
2. Electromagnetic Waves

See the following flow chart to realize how previous wave types are related to this classification of waves.

 

Types of Mechanical Waves Explained

There are many types of waves, but this type of waves require a medium to travel. Examples of Mechanical waves include many waves such as,

• Sound waves
• Water waves
• Ocean waves
• Earth quake waves
• Seismic waves

Sound Waves

Sound waves are considered as a type of mechanical waves under sub type, longitudinal waves. When talking about sound waves, there are whole lot of sounds we hear everyday from songs to horns and your voice to bird voices.

Do you know there is an energy flowing with waves? Yes, that’s why particles vibrate and why we hear the sounds. Lot of animals create sounds by vibrating vocal chords of their throat. Today communication is evolved to emails, messages and similar technologies, but the common method is sound communication.

Musicians have done amazing things by manipulating sound to build songs. You can find even crazy instruments too.

Water Waves

What happens when a stone is dropped to a bucket of water? It generates some type of wave. Remember water waves are always transverse waves under mechanical waves main type. This means particles vibrate right angled to the direction of the wave. Tsunami, floods are common destruction of water waves.

Earth Quake Waves

Earth has few layers and one of them is the lithosphere. It is broken down to tectonic plates and sometimes these plates slide inside the earth. This activity causes the earthquakes. Quick releasing of stress and energy through cracks on earth is the main reason for earthquakes.

Earthquakes happen when the cracked sea bed set again with each other due to release of energy through the process. These shock waves come to the surface of earth as earthquakes.

Epicenter is the place where it all starts. There are 2 types of waves coming from the epicenter.

• Body Waves
• Surface Waves

So what’s the bad one from above 2? What causes the painful damage to our lives? They are surface waves. They are transverse waves.

You can find 2 types of waves for body waves as Primary and Secondary waves.
– Primary waves → Longitudinal waves
– Secondary → Transverse waves

Secondary body waves got the ability of traveling through inside of earth. Earthquake waves are also known as Seismic waves and they can be identified with Seismometers.

Shallow Water Waves

This type of waves are created in the shallow water. Their circular motion turns to an elliptical motion once near the shore. Surface waves become steeper and higher. However higher depth means a weak wave which breaks quickly. That’s why the surf is formed by the crest of this type of waves.

Tsunami also a type of shallow water waves. These waves have higher wave length and a little amount of energy loses when it travels. Near the coastal area the wave length becomes small by increasing the amplitude of the wave. So it turns to be a monster wave that attack the land.

Cracks of the sea bed can often occur due to the landslides, volcanic eruptions, nuclear bomb tests under the water and meteors too.

Types of Electromagnetic Waves

Electromagnetic waves are the type of waves which does not require any medium to travel. These waves can propagate even in space too. Swing of the electric and magnetic fields perpendicular or right angle to each other forms the electromagnetic waves.

If we a draw a 3 dimensional figure to represent electromagnetic wave. Then it would have 3 dimensions as X, Y(Up or Down) and Z.

Electric and magnetic fields are widened when the speed of alternating direction of the current increases. Due to the high frequency vibration these fields release energy to the environment as waves. Unlike other mechanical waves this type of waves have different wave length and frequencies. That resulted in various properties for every electromagnetic wave.

World becomes creative and innovative day by day. Man has created various gadgets with the capability of dealing with individual electromagnetic waves. Want me to specify few examples? I’d love to do it even if you don’t want to hear it.

Televisions, Ovens, Radios, Radars, X-ray machines and many more are examples for electromagnetic waves. Before hitting some types of waves, let me describe the common characteristics of electromagnetic waves.

• Electromagnetic waves are a type of transverse waves.
• These waves do not require a medium to travel.
• As the name of the waves imply, these waves show electrical and magnetic properties.
• No any charge occur in the waves.
• Electromagnetic waves work by the laws of reflection and refraction.
• They travel as straight lines in a vacuum at a speed of 3 x 10⁸ ms^-1.
• Intensity of electromagnetic waves depend on the electrical field strength.

 

Microwaves

I’m sure your mom is familiar with microwaves better than you. Because there is a kitchen equipment using the power of microwaves. These waves have high frequency when compared to TV and radio waves. See the figure for a closer understanding of the range of these electromagnetic waves.

That kitchen instrument is the microwave oven. The magic is the microwaves can form heat in the foods kept in a microwave oven. That resulted in a quick and efficient cooking of the food better than the usual gas cooker.

Also microwaves are used in radars and for communication purposes.

Radio & Television Waves

These waves have lower frequency than microwaves and are using for communication purposes. Radios and TVs are working because of these waves. FM – Frequency Modulation – is known as the waves belong to MHz wave range while AM – Amplitude Modulation –  is known as the waves belong to KHz wave range.

I’m sure you have heard about short names AM and FM, but did you know the meaning of it? TV waves are belonging to MHz range where FM waves are located.

Infrared Rays

As you can see in the figure of electromagnetic waves, Infrared rays located in the 3rd place after radio, TV waves and microwaves. Because infrared rays have a higher frequency than those 2 types of waves. Infrared rays are similar to Microwaves a bit since they are a type of heat rays.

As a matter of fact, every hot item or gadget or object becomes cool after releasing the heat as infrared radiation. Yep! all objects become warm due to the absorption of these infrared rays.

Suppose you wanted to dry your clothes by using the energy of sunlight. You know electromagnetic waves are coming as light. Now keep the water evaporation factor aside and concentrate on drying clothes with sunlight. Here clothes get dry because of infrared rays. It’ the same reason why it gets warm too!

Photography and medical industries use infrared rays for various jobs.

Visible light

You can see the world because of the visible light waves of electromagnetic waves. Stars and sun emits visible light which includes 7 colors. You know what they have various wave lengths. Let me introduce you those 7 colors now,

1. Red
2. Orange
3. Yellow
4. Green
5. Blue
6. Violet
7. Magenta

My favorite colors are Black, Bright Yellow, Dark Red. What are yours?

X-Rays

X-rays beat all other types of waves with a ultimately high frequency. Ya! X-rays are really powerful enough to penetrate a body due to the amount of energy. That’s why doctors suggest many patients to take X-rays to diagnose various diseases such as cancers. Therefore X-rays are widely used in the medical industry.

Photographs taken with X-rays show only a shadow of what it penetrated. These waves can identify only the bones and colored tissues of animals. People use X-rays to encounter any issues with steel pipes and scientists use them as a way to see electron patterns in atoms. However these waves can cause gene mutation some times.

Ultraviolet Rays

Did you watch ‘The Strain’ TV series last month? Eph on the show uses Ultraviolet or UV rays to see those white worms. Hope you realize ultraviolet rays are used in the medical industry at that moment.

Okay tell me, do you care about your skin? Ultraviolet rays help in tanning of your skin plus synthesizing of Vitamin D. Every good thing has an evil side, excessive exposure to ultraviolet rays can be harmful for your skin and retina of the eye. Remember UV rays can be a cause for cancers.

There are substances which absorb electromagnetic waves such as Ultraviolet rays. Later these substances emit visible light to the surround. These substances are known as Florescence. I guess you have seen those florescence tube lights. Do you know how they work? Let me describe it.

The tube lights are made from glass with florescence substances applied to the inner surface of it. There is a gas inside the tube light which produces ultraviolet rays when electric current is passing through the tube. As soon as the ultraviolet rays formed they are absorbed by the florescence substances applied to the inner surface of the glass. Finally the magic gives out visible light from it.

So what you think about the Florescence materials? May be you could integrate those stuffs to do something innovative and beautiful. Humans have mixed those substances with paints, so once applied to the wall, it looks bright. There are few uses of Ultraviolet rays such as using them to kill bacteria, skin tanning, to find cracks of objects and to identify to false currencies.

It’s not the end of the world, but it’s the end of this post about types of waves according to the media of propagation. Which types of waves you like mostly, mechanical or electromagnetic? Comment your lovely opinion below and share the stuffs with your friends.

Read this science piece here Types of Waves, Mechanical & Electromagnetic Waves on Smart Science Pro.

You have a hundred billion useful ability, you can see the world around you. That’s because the light waves. No light waves mean a darker world, it’s what you called night!

Then you can listen to mind-blowing songs, talk with your mom. All thanks to the sound waves around you. Perhaps, you have been exposed to flame of the gas cooker and felt the heat of it. Heat waves cause the heat which you felt at that moment.

Almost in all the homes, there’s a cute radio and a thin television. These stuffs work because of radio waves and tv waves.

Past years everywhere of the world had to face the damn disaster, Tsunami. The cause for Tsunami is the water waves. Sunny weather is my favorite one. Those solar rays which are required for the process of photosynthesis are coming as light waves. Okay, humans have identified following waves so far,

• Light waves
• Water waves
• Radio waves
• Microwaves
• Earth waves
• UV Rays
• Gamma Rays
• X Rays
• and many more!

How Waves Form?

Who likes to play on a swimming pool? I hope you do! 😉 Have you ever seen the waves on the surface of water in the pool? If you forgot to put some attention on it, fill a water bucket now. Then put a little stone to it. When the stone hits the water level, it makes the water particles vibrate. This is what you called as water waves.

Hold on baby! What exactly known as Vibration? What’s it?

Vibration is the movement with a rhythm of an object from a fixed point to any direction. When you touch the surface of motionless water, the water particles would start to vibrate. This vibration spreads around the water as circular ripples.

Wave can be known as a periodic motion which flows from one place to another along a medium or a space.

In the definition of wave, it mentions a necessity of medium or space. Hence the medium of above circular ripple wave is the water. It’s the medium of transmission.

I’m pretty sure you have seen metal springs found in spring pens. Remember that ‘Tik Tak’ sound? Take one and shake one end of it to create a disturbance. This can be seen best with a slinky due to the low tension of it. You can see the spring or slinky move forward and backward for a sometime.

Those are waves! Slinky or the spring is the propagation medium. Particles of the medium move periodically after a wave is flowing through a medium. Particles of the medium may move any direction forward, backward, upward or downward.

Did you knew water waves contain particles moving up and down.

Waves travel across the medium. Particles vibrating in 1 place transfers the energy to other particles. Therefore the energy is propagating from one place to another throughout the wave.

You can classify waves to 2 types according to the movement of particles and wave direction.

1. Transverse Waves
2. Longitudinal Waves

I’ll explain what each of these wave types mean and their properties below.

Transverse Waves, What Are They?

Transverse waves show a particle vibration of perpendicular to the wave direction. You can easily observer transverse waves by shaking a slinky or rope perpendicular to its axis or by dropping a stone to motionless water.

Now as an example, let me use the stone dropping to still water. The stone which was dropped to the water created a disturbance. That resulted in a wave. Have you ever heard stones floating on water? I don’t think so!

Stones cannot float on water due to its density and mass.

When stone goes down fast, it creates a Trough of the wave by dipping water particles. Then the newton’s law of every action has an equal and opposite reaction occurs by water particles coming up again. That’s where a Crest of a wave occurs.

You can notice a trough of the transverse waves transferred to a crest when the wave propagates. Yep! reverse of it too happen as a crest becomes a trough. So by creating alternate crests and troughs transverse waves propagate forward.

You want to see this trough and crest thing? Okay, fill a medium size large bucket with water. Create a nice paper boat 🙂 and keep it on the surface of water. Let things to be calm and once the water is still, create yourself a disturbance to that water. See what happens!

Paper boat moves up and down every time a wave is passed. Am I correct? That’s due to the existence of trough and crest. However the boat isn’t moving to the direction of wave.

Longitudinal Waves Explained …

Other type of waves moved perpendicular to the wave direction, but longitudinal waves show a particle movement of parallel to the direction of the wave. Slinky is the best thing to explain about waves and here we go with it again. When the slinky is vibrated from its axis, it shows a longitudinal wave.

Hacksaw blade and tuning forks are 2 other goodies to form a longitudinal wave in the air. As transverse waves consist of 2 parts, longitudinal waves also have 2 parts as Compressions and Rarefactions.

Compressions are the places where the air particles close together while the Rarefactions are the places where the air particles are spread out. If you observe a tuning fork’s longitudinal wave, you may notice the compressed air gets spread out when the fork arms come closer.

Same as transverse waves, compression becomes a rarefaction after a little time and the reverse too. Air particles move forward since the elasticity property of air.

What Are Parts of a Wave?

Humans and all living organisms are created with various body parts or organs such as eyes, nose, legs. Waves are also formed with few parts or things. In physics, mathematics is an essential for greater extent. With using these parts you can predict the height of a sea wave smarter than your friends who don’t learn physics.

Wave consist of 4 parts as,

• Wave length
• Amplitude
• Wave speed
• Frequency

Look at the diagram for better understanding of these parts. I’ll explain each item in detail.

Wave Length

Wave length is the distance between any particle to closest particle on same level of motion. It means a complete cycle of wave. Usually a wave is built up with collection of such cycles. Wave length got its own symbol to denote in mathematics operations.

Wave length → λ

International standard unit – SI Unit – for the wave length is m – Meters.

Amplitude

You can divide a straight line 2 parts and there is a center for that straight line. Similarly, a wave has a mean level too. Amplitude is the maximum height from the mean level of a wave. You know the songs you listen are just a bit of sound waves. Right?

If you can’t hear a song well enough, you can boost the amplitude of the sound wave. Then the song would hear louder.

What if the amplitude is extremely high for a water wave coming from sea? It’d become a tsunami wave! This means a high amplitude means more power for the wave. Again the SI unit for amplitude is meters.

Frequency

You remember catching the favorite radio FM years ago? Every radio FM has its own frequency and that’s what you’re trying to catch. This means every wave has a frequency.

Frequency means the amount of vibrations or the cycles done by a particle in a second. The symbol of frequency is Hz because the standard unit for frequency is the Hertz. You need to use f when building the equation mentioned below.

Wave Speed

Wave speed is the distance traveled by the wave for 1 second. The symbol of the wave speed is V. Remember the speed the wave takes to complete one wave cycle is equal to the wave length. Suppose ‘f’ number of cycles are occurred in 1 second, then the distance in 1 second can be founded by following equation.

V = fλ

This equation for the speed of a wave. Using it you can find details about the destruction waves to find possible solutions.

Here’s an example with above equation.

The wave length of a water wave coming from the sea is 2m. Its frequency is 800hz. Therefore the speed of this wave is as follows,

V = fλ
V = 2m x 800hz
V = 1600ms^-1

What you think about waves around you? There are some fun facts and inspiring technologies with wave powers to build mind-blowing gadgets and they are stories for other times.

Let’s share it with the world!

Read this science piece here 2 Types of Waves by Particle Movement on Smart Science Pro.

1. There is a basic structure and functional unit inside all the living organisms. This unit performs couple of activities inside to help the organism. It is the cell.

2. Exchange of various materials into the organism is a required task. It is an inevitable activity to exchange materials through the surfaces of an organism.

3. When the cell increases by quantity, the increased area is always less than the volume increased. It is not sufficient to exchange materials to perform vital activities. This results in a thing called cell division after the growth limit.

4. Multicellular organisms such as you and other animals originated because of cell division. It forms the tissues which is a collection of tiny cells.

5. Tissues of the organisms together forms organs and they form a system to the body.

6. Plant systems originated by combining couple of tissues. Xylem and Phloem system are 2 examples for that.

7. Animal systems are formed with multiple tissues as functional units. Eyes, Stomach, Nose, Tongue and skin are few examples for animal systems.

8. Every organism must perform the vital activities required to live, Organization of those vital activities known as the life.

9. Animals have systems formed by number of organs and they do various activities using these systems. Respiratory system, Immunity system and Digestive system are few examples.

10. Living organism is the combination of such body systems.

11. Reproduction and growth is for the existence of an organism. Energy required for these activities obtained through respiration.

12. In addition, raw materials are provided by nutrients from what they consume. Production of excretory substances with above activities is a usual process.

13. Excretory system is available for almost all the organisms due to the above fact.

14. Living organisms required to move and respond to external stimuli to perform the vital activities.

15. If the organism is bigger in size and higher in complexity of the systems, the intake amount of food increases. Therefore, the excretory substances too increase.

16. Diffusion of the materials is a better way for unicellular organisms, but not for multicellular organisms such as human.

17. Mass flow is the efficient method for exchanging materials in multicellular organisms. It occurs due to the pressure difference of the body parts.

18. Blood circulatory system, excretory system and respiratory system are few places where mass flow occurs.

19. If not for body systems, living organisms would not be able to perform their vital activities to become successful in the environment.

I’m sure I have missed over a billion facts about living organisms for this short list. Do you know another fact? Please comment it below while sharing these 19 facts about living organisms with your friends.

Read this science piece here 19 Science Facts About Living Organisms on Smart Science Pro.

Every human is made up of tiny structures known as cells. Those cells together form tissues for the animal known as human. Collection of animal tissues come up with organs. Finally, your human body is designed with various systems made up of above stuffs. If you say me to name a few, I’d appreciatively mention digestive system, nervous system, blood circulatory system and one more, that’s the human immunity system.

Yep! almost all the animals have their own functional immunity systems as well as human beings. I’m going to explain you more about the immune system of humans in the next couple of minutes.

I have explained few types of microorganisms such as parasitic, saprophytic in the natural classification of microorganisms. These are harmful organisms that you cannot see with naked eye. They can live on your body and consume your resources.

These days I’m watching a TV show called ‘The Strain‘ and it is all about such an animal(not a microorganism) that can enter and live on human body and drinks its blood.

Anyway, this means other harmful organisms could enter your body and spread various diseases inside it. They can harm your health status and more!

Immunity Secures It All …

You’re using a computer or some other device to read this piece of science. All people know computers can be hacked unless it has some sort of protection. Usually main thing that secures your computer from a hacker is the firewall. What if you don’t have any protection against your computer?

A hacker will ruin your world, delete your files required to run the systems properly, erase your golden data, consume it to do some slavery act and so on.

Now put the above phenomenon to human body. Yeah! Immunity is what protects your body and its systems from hackers known as microorganisms. It is the firewall of your computer – Body – If your immunity is weak, it opens up doors to harmful organisms to play with you.

Okay after all, the immunity is the ability of your body to prevent the entering and settling of microorganisms inside your body. The human body has the ability of fighting with microorganisms and it really can weaken the strength of them. Many times weaker microorganisms are killed by your immunity in the entering process.

This is exactly the same reason why your fever is gone naturally, and it is the same reason why you don’t get some of the diseases. However, natural human immunity system isn’t the all-in-one fighter for every disease and microorganisms.

Therefore you can find 2 types of immunity as,

1. Adaptive Immunity System also known as Specific Immunity.
2. Innate Immunity System also known as Non-specific Immunity.

Adaptive Immunity System

Immunity system is able to produce antibodies against various molecules of the microorganisms due to the availability of a protein in your body. These antibodies are specific for certain diseases such as Measles, Chicken pox and Mumps.

Adaptive immunity may last till death or for some time. It causes by 2 methods,

1. Immunity which causes after contracting a disease once.
2. Immunity which causes by artificial methods. – Triple and Rubella injections given to infants and children is an example.

During the pregnancy period infant gets all his energy, nutrition from the mother. This list include some antibodies too. Breast milk of a mother contains Colostrum which is a substance providing antibodies to an infant. This process also belongs to adaptive immunity system of humans.

Innate Immunity System

Innate immunity is the natural method of protection to your body. There are several ways an innate immunity may occurs such as,

• Phagocytosis.
• Antibiotics in the blood and body fluids.
• Inflammation responses by the body.
• Membranes of the body such as skin and mucous.

External layer of your skin is made up of animal tissues known as epithelial tissue. It prevents microorganisms from entering to your body and skin. If you’re an excessive sweater like me, no doubt that you want to kill the whole sweating process. But do you know sweat helps to stop the growth of disease causing organisms? Yep that crazy liquid does …

In addition to the sweat, anti microorganic substances and secretions of the sebaceous gland prevents the growth of microorganisms.

You can find the mucous membrane in your respiratory system. This is another way of innate immunity and it generates mucous. The bad guys – Microorganisms – trying to enter your body through respiratory system gets trapped in the mucous. Later they are sent to the stomach with mucous.

Okay, quick question. Which acid secretes by your digestive system to digest all that food you eat?
It is Hydrochloric Acid.

Above acid destroys the mucous with microorganisms. As a result you are being saved from some diseases.

The lysosome found in tears and sputum can break the cell walls of the bacteria making things easier to kill. Then iron is a substance which promotes the growth of bacteria and some chemicals after reacting with iron could reverse their growth – Reducing the growth.

There are 2 types of blood cells in your body as red blood cells and white blood cells. These white cells have a job of attacking the disease causing microorganisms. Human bile, tears and breast milk contains a chemical known as Lactoferrin.

In the process where microorganisms enter your blood stream, white blood cells in the blood and the lymphatic system destroys them by Phagocytosis.

Blood Clotting or Coagulation Process

Blood coagulation is also related to the innate immunity system to protect you. Fibrinogen, Calcium ions, Thromboplastine and Prothombine which is an anti enzyme are few substances take part in the blood coagulation process. They can be found in the blood plasma.

Gelatinous fiber is created by the chemicals and when the blood cells flow through this fiber they coagulates.

There is another thing which is required for coagulation. I have mentioned that one thing before too. It is platelets which is another substance contained in the blood. In addition it is found that Vitamin K also supports the coagulation process.

Microorganisms can enter to your body through fresh wounds, bruises etc. However due to the quick blood clotting, they can’t do that easily.

Human Blood Groups

Karl Landsteiner is an Austrian doctor who founded the 4 blood groups initially in 1901. These 4 blood groups given the names as A, B, AB and O. Difference of the 4 blood groups is the special proteins and antibody generators.

Later after few unsuccessful blood transfusions Karl found out something new. There were special proteins available in the red blood cells. It was named as Rh factor. Not all people have Rh factor in their blood and those who have it named as Rh+ with their blood group.

So the current 8 groups of blood includes A, A+, B, B+, AB, AB+, O and O+. Do you know which group you’re belonging to? It is a wise thing to know it always.

Blood Transfusion

There is no doubt that you have heard about all those blood banks and blood donation campaigns around the city. These are emerged due to the founding of blood transfusion. Simply it means transferring blood to a person who has a deficiency in blood constituents occurred with diseases caused by microorganisms.

This is a artificial process. All the donated blood are centrifuged and separated into Leukocytes, Erythrocytes, Plasma and Platelets. Separated components are stored in the right temperature till their usage arrive.

There are 2 rules in the blood transfusion process. First is the compatibility of blood group of the recipient and the donor. Blood of the donor must be free from diseases. There are few more things to find the suitability of a person to donate blood.

• The person should be free from HIV AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases
• Should have a weight over 50kg.
• Should be in the range of 18 – 60 years of age.
• Shouldn’t be subjected to following diseases at least once – Typhoid, Chicken Pox, Measles, Hepatitis.

Okay, that’s how your body fights the bad guys out there. Did you knew about the immunity system do this much of work? What do you think about it? I’d like to hear your ideas through social profiles.

Share once to help at least 10 people who love to learn about this system of human beings. 🙂

Read this science piece here Human Immunity System Which Fights Your Diseases on Smart Science Pro.

Humans belong to the natural classification group of Animals. Almost all animals have blood inside their bodies. There are 4 types of animal tissues as Muscle Tissue, Nerve Tissue, Epithelial Tissue and finally Blood Tissue. So that means today I’m going to go deeper about the blood tissue of human beings.

Sometimes we all face to common things in our life. One such thing is getting a wound on hands or legs. I’m sure you have had a wound or at least a bruise in your body. What happens as soon as you’re wounded? Blood comes out of that wound quickly.

Blood is always flowing through the blood vessels inside our body. Blood is a homogeneous fluid and it gets separated into 2 components when left in a test tube. These are 2 components of blood. One component looks dark red gelatinous and the other is a yellow colored fluid.

Okay, how much blood do you have in your body? It’s about 5.5 liters of blood in a normal person. Let’s go deeper and deeper on components of blood!

Components of Blood

You know that every tissue is made up of cells and they are very tiny structures that you can’t see with naked eye. Therefore, you have to get the help of a microscope to observe the components of blood. All you need is a slide of blood kept under the microscope.

You would see lots of cells floating here and there in a fluid when looking at the slide through microscope. Most of these cells are red color. You can see other type of cells which are in different sizes and small in amount.

Now cover the blood slide with a cover slip and add a little drop of dilute Acetic Acid. Then look at the blood slide again through microscope and you’ll see those red blood cells are gone. Instead you can see other type of blood cells, they are white blood cells.

Okay, let me explain each of these 2 blood types and other components of blood in detail now.

Red Blood Cells or Erythrocytes

The red color cells seen in the above experiment are known as red blood cells, red blood corpuscles or Erythrocytes. Your blood looks red because of red blood cells. Erythrocytes have a bi-concave shape with a movement in group or single inside blood vessels.

Result is the efficient exchange of gases through their surface. Red blood cells are bigger in size, hence they cannot move through capillary tubes easily. That leads to a better exchange of gases in terms of time.

Red color of the red blood cell is coming from hemoglobin. Hemoglobin is made from a pigment known as Haematin that consist of iron and a protein named Globulin. Life is short and red blood cells prove that statement again due to their lifetime is limited to 3 months.

Once reached that time they are broken down in the liver and spleen. Even though the red blood cells died, body can absorb its proteins and iron of the Hemoglobin. Red blood cells are formed in the bone marrow.

OxyHemoglobin is formed by the oxygen and hemoglobin in red blood cells. That resulted in a bright red for the blood. Oxyhemoglobin breaks when they reach cells to release the oxygen and these oxygen diffuses into the cell.

White Blood Cells or Leukocytes

As mentioned earlier, white blood cells are larger than the red blood cells, however the amount of white blood cells is low. If you want that in numbers, the amount of Leukocytes is 1 per 600 Erythrocytes in a person’s body. White blood cells are colorless and have a nucleus.

You can find 4000 to 11,000 white blood cells in a 1ml of human blood. If you read our previous post about animal tissues, you know there are 2 types of white blood cells according to the availability of granules in the cytoplasm. They are Granulocytes and Agranulocytes.

Above 2 types can be divided to another 5. Lympocytes are one type of white blood cells and they have a large nucleus that fills the whole cell with a rounded shape. As erythrocytes these leukocytes are formed in the bone marrow.

Certain leukocytes display an amoeboid movement, they engulf bacteria and viruses that enter to your body. This process of killing bad stuffs is known as Phagocytosis. Sometimes these cells form antibodies against harmful bacteria and viruses.

Platelets

Main components of the blood are erythrocytes and leukocytes. In addition to those, there are another type of cells which are very small and no nuclei. These cells have granules and known as Platelets. If you’re injured the blood comes out of your wound.

Blood will not come out of the wound continuously due to the blood clotting process. Few substances support the blood clotting process and it is quickened by Platelets.

Blood Plasma

When you observe the blood slide through microscope, you saw a fluid around the blood cells. It is the blood plasma which shows a yellow color. Blood plasma contain 55% of the blood and 92% of the plasma is water. Many substances required by the body can be found in the blood plasma.

Blood got a fluid nature because of blood plasma. It transports all the substances such as blood cells, hormones, nutrients and excretory substances throughout the body. It also regulates the body temperature.

These are the components of blood that you can’t see with a quick glance. They are doing an amazing job, isn’t it? I’d like to hear your opinion about these blood components. As a reminder your share is very valuable to me. So please do share 🙂

Read this science piece here 4 Components of Blood With Functions on Smart Science Pro.