Electrical

I recently undertook the task of helping my favourite teen-ager with her science homework and ended up having to review electricity and the historical development of the major concepts in the area. At one point, I became quite puzzled: everything seemed to be running backwards, with the most fundamental concepts appearing after
the derived: ohm comes after ampère, volt after ohm, and, coming full circle, the newton appearing in dictionnaries in 19 35. This is not an accident; indeed it is the secret to the whole thing. Electricity in the home is not a natural phenomena, but an engineering decision, An electrical line is kept at a definite voltage, defined as the product of current intensity and resistance. Consider an alternative decision - keeping the current into the home constant - regardless of the presence or absence of resistance: the potential for accident is extreme.

The following table gives an overview.