Electricity and Magnetism Objective: Understand and describe the different forms of electricity, magnetism, and atomic structure Click on the play arrow to hear the lesson X X Directions: Read through the lesson, taking notes as you read. Complete each Checkpoint for Part A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, & I. Then complete the Review questions. Submit all of your questions in the submission box at the same time. X Part A: Electricity, Magnetism, and Atomic Structure You learned a little bit about how masses attract each other with gravitational forces, but there are other attractive forces in the universe that are much stronger: the force between electrically charged particles. Such particles may also repel each other. The nature of these forces has to do with the way in which matter is put together with tiny particles called atoms. Three particles-protons, neutrons, and electrons---come together to create an atom. Electrons, which are very tiny, carry a negative charge. Protons are 1,800 times bigger than electrons, but they carry an equal, but opposite, positive charge. Neutrons, just slightly bigger than protons, are electrically neutral. Protons and neutrons contain most of the mass of an atom and form its center, or nucleus. Electrons orbit the nucleus in a kind of cloud of negative charge. Most matter contains an equal number of protons and electrons, making it electrically neutral, but electrons can be stripped from one atom and added to another. When this happens, the atom losing one or more electrons has a net positive charge, and the one gaining one or more electrons becomes negative. Like charges repel each other. Unlike charges attract. If you rub a balloon on your hair, the balloon will remove some electrons. The balloon becomes negative, and your hair becomes positive. Hold the balloon a short distance from your hair (without touching it) and you have a bad hair day, as strands of hair reach for the balloon. The unit of charge is called a coulomb and represents about 6.28 billion, billion electron