This blog post explains in an easy and interesting way how electrical engineering affects our daily lives and how it will lead the future society.
Electricity has become an essential element of modern society. It is difficult to imagine life without electricity. If electricity were to disappear, countries would be thrown into great chaos, with all means of transportation, including subways, paralyzed, the global economy collapsing, and military security systems collapsing. In addition, people would be inconvenienced by not being able to use their smartphones, computers, or even elevators. Electrical engineering is the study of electricity, which plays a key role in our lives. However, many people associate electrical engineering with electricians, mechanics, or computer repair technicians. Therefore, in this article, I will explain what electrical engineering is so that readers can easily understand it.
Electrical engineering can be divided into two broad categories. First, it is a discipline that studies and applies electrical phenomena, and second, it is a discipline that studies and applies magnetic phenomena. At first glance, these two disciplines may seem completely unrelated, but they have the commonality that both electricity and magnetism are phenomena caused by electrons. Atoms, the smallest unit of matter, are composed of a nucleus and electrons. The nucleus of an atom is composed of protons with a positive charge and neutrons, which are neutral, while electrons have a negative charge. Electricity is a phenomenon that occurs when electrons move, while magnetism is a phenomenon that occurs when electrons are stationary. Let’s take a closer look at what electrical engineering has to say about these electrical and magnetic phenomena.
Electrons can move for various reasons, and this flow of electrons is called current. The energy that electrons transfer as they move is called electrical energy. Electrical engineering studies the process of transferring and distributing electrical energy, and the path that the current flows and the materials located along that path are collectively called a circuit. In addition to current, there is also the concept of voltage in a circuit, which causes current to flow naturally from high to low, like the height of a slide. Additional energy is required to force current to flow from low to high.
The basic components of a circuit include resistors, inductors, and capacitors. Resistance hinders the flow of current, an inductor induces voltage from changes in current, and a capacitor stores electrical energy. These three elements are denoted R, L, and C, respectively, and electrical engineering teaches us how to design circuits that fit the purpose. For example, putting the best smartphone circuitry into a computer circuit does not mean that the computer will work properly. Electrical devices can function properly only when the circuits are designed to suit the purpose of each product.
Another major phenomenon in electrical engineering is magnetism. All materials contain electrons, and their electrical properties vary depending on the amount of electrons. Materials with more electrons are negatively charged, while materials with fewer electrons are positively charged. The force generated by these charges is called magnetism. For example, the same electric charges repel each other, while different electric charges attract each other, which is called the Coulomb force. The interaction between a magnet and iron filings that we can easily encounter in our daily lives is due to the Coulomb force.
Electricity and magnetism seem to exist independently, but in fact they interact closely. Electromagnetism is a representative discipline that studies this interaction. Electromagnetism studies the interaction between electricity and magnetism and is applied to various fields. Electromagnetic waves are a representative example of this, which are waves generated by the interaction of electrical and magnetic phenomena. Light is an example of electromagnetic waves. Electromagnetic waves are a medium that can contain and transmit various types of information, and electrical engineering studies how to contain and analyze information in this medium. For example, the antenna on the Internet router receives electrical signals and converts them into electromagnetic waves to transmit Wi-Fi signals.
In addition, electrical engineering is divided into several fields, including power engineering, which efficiently converts and uses electrical energy; semiconductor engineering, which studies semiconductors; software-related studies, which deal with programming; control engineering, which controls electrically operated devices; and communication engineering, which studies the principles and applications of communication. These studies may appear to be separate, but they all have one thing in common: they are based on phenomena that occur due to electrons.
In conclusion, various disciplines and technologies of electrical engineering have become indispensable to us in our daily lives. Smartphones are an aggregate of electrical engineering, and all of their elements, including touch screens, operating systems, LTE communication networks, compact cameras, and batteries, are applications of electrical engineering. As such, electrical engineering is an important discipline that drives the technological development of modern society.
