🔴 Difference between ELECTRICITY and ELECTRONICS 💻
What is the difference between electricity and electronics? Electricity and electronics are two words so closely related that we sometimes confuse the two concepts. Although both definitions are closely related, they have marked differences.
Electricity is defined as a form of energy that can be used for multiple applications today, based on the management of the principles and phenomena from which it is obtained, such as the kinetic and potential energy applied in hydroelectric plants from which electricity is generated. Therefore, electricity is a physical phenomenon, resulting from the existence and interaction of electrical charges. Electricity can be harnessed through elements such as resistors, heaters, and electric motors, which receive the electrical impulse to transform that energy and power into another type of energy, such as mechanical energy and heat.
Electronics is a branch of physics. Through it, devices are used to obtain or transform information from the use and management of electrical phenomena. Electronics works with active elements such as transistors and operational amplifiers, which use the electrical impulses they receive to transform them and produce information.
It can be said that the ultimate goal of electronics is to indicate, display, or inform something in some way. For a device to be considered electronic, it must ultimately produce information. For example, the iPhone is an electronic device because it uses electrical impulses in addition to other circuits to transmit information.
The transistor was invented in 1948. A small device with effects very similar to those of the Audion tube, but much smaller in size. The transistor controls the flow of electrons through a semiconductor material rather than through a vacuum. This type of electronics is also called solid-state electronics. A transistor controls the flow of current through current or voltage, whereas a vacuum tube controls the flow of current through voltage alone. Once the definitions of electricity and electronics have been presented, it can be seen that there are important differences between electricity and electronics:
• Humans' objective with electricity is to harness energy and power for different purposes, but the ultimate goal of electronics is to transmit information, because it has the ability to harness the flow of current for this purpose.
• Devices that use electricity are not necessarily electronic, but all electronic devices must necessarily work with electricity.
• Electricity is responsible for the flow of electrons (energy) to be used in different applications in everyday life, but electronics is responsible for the transmission of information through the use of the flow of electrons (energy).
• Electricity is associated with the use of passive elements such as: resistors, capacitors, coils, and inductors. Electronics is associated with the use of active elements such as: transistors, operational amplifiers, SCRs, etc.
• For a circuit to be properly called an "electronic circuit," it must contain at least one active element. If this circuit does not have active elements (it only has resistors, capacitors, inductors, transformers, and even rectifier diodes, all called passive elements), it is not a genuinely "electronic" circuit.
A computer is an electronic device. It takes the electricity that comes into your home and transforms it through its electronic circuits so that you can watch this video and interact by liking or sharing it with your friends.
In this sense, everything electronic is electrical, but electrical is not necessarily electronic.
Ultimately, it is not possible to send information with an electrical circuit. With an electronic circuit, information is sent from one place to another, thanks to its ability to control the flow of current.