Electronics All-in-One For Dummies, 3rd Edition

Chapter 1

Getting into Alternating Current

IN THIS CHAPTER

Looking at alternating current

Glimpsing at the history of how alternating current won out over direct current

Examining how an alternator can convert mechanical power to alternating current

Discovering how electric motors work

Unveiling the magic of transformers

A few years ago, I saw one of my favorite musicals, Les Misérables. It has nothing to do with electricity, of course, but at the end of the first act, as the daring gang of revolutionary college students join the rest of the characters singing “One Day More!,” they do a really cool marching step in which they march one pace toward the audience, then one pace back, one pace forward, one pace back, and so on. It creates a convincing effect of a mob on the move, even though the mob isn’t going anywhere.

That’s how alternating current works. So far in this book, I’ve focused mostly on working with direct current, in which the electric current flows in one direction and ...