Note that you're using the old scientific definition of "electricity," and this can become very confusing if you also read today's books. Old books say that the flow of electricity is called electric current. New books ignore this, change the definition, and insist that "electricity" is the flowing motion itself! (It's like becoming confused about the difference between air and wind.)
Rather than choosing one definition or the other, perhaps it's best to just give up and stop saying "electricity," ever. Pretend that there's no such thing as Electricity. Instead say "charge" if you mean charge, and "current" if you mean charge-flow.
On the other hand, combining the old and new meanings of "electricity" will screw everything up. Here is the result below. Simple and obvious right? Hah!
- "Electricity" is the movement of electricity.
- Whenever electricity starts moving, we call the resulting motion by the name "...electricity!"
See? Messed up.
Oh, also you're using the phrase "current flow." That causes problems too. OK, whenever you turn on a faucet, does water come out? Or, does current come out? In rivers, does "current" flow along? Can you fill a bucket with current? Nope. Current means "water flow," and the flow itself does not flow. (Similarly, we can't have a tank full of compressed wind!) In electric circuits, charges can flow inside the conductors. But currents? They never flow, they just appear and vanish as the flow starts up or halts. Things become much clearer if we avoid the word "current," and instead say "charge flow." (Beware, many textbooks will constantly talk about "flows of current," when they should be explaining flows of charge.)
Try this:
- Ohms = a type of electrical friction. But also an "electrical leakage path" between two wires.
- Watts = the flow-rate of electrical energy, where watt means "joules per second." (Watts are a rate, not a 'stuff.')
- Voltage = something like pressure, but more like "altitude." To make water flow downhill, first we need a hill. Voltage is "electric altitude." Two different voltages give us an "electric slope" which forces the charges to move.
- Amperes = the flow-rate of the charges; the charges which always exist inside all conductors. (Fast charges are high current, slow charges are low current. At zero current, the charges halt, and they remain sitting inside the conductors.)
In school I have learned that
That's a problem, because the low-level books have wrong explanations, and the high-level books use math instead of words. If you're still in school, then you'll get bad grades whenever you give correct answers, since your textbook disagrees. Better to just give the teachers what they want, escape from class, then go off and figure out the correct explanations on your own. Like this:
- all conductors are already full of movable charges. In metals, these charges are the electrons of the metal, orbiting among all the atoms constantly.
- Hook a bunch of conductors in a circle. This gives you a loop made of movable charges, almost like a "drive belt."
- Batteries are charge-pumps. They're always on, always trying to pump, but the air has no movable charges, not like metals do. A battery is a stalled pump, and uses no energy when stalled.
- If you hook a battery into your circle, the pump starts pumping, and the entire "invisible belt" will start moving like a single object. Charges are moving through the battery. The battery doesn't supply the stuff that flows along.
- Resistors are like friction. If you hook a resistor in your loop, then the battery will speed up the circle of charge, while the resistor will slow it back down again. The metals' charges circulate, the resistor gets hot, and the chemical fuel inside the battery gets consumed.
- Break the circle. The break acts like a blockage. Charges can't get past the gap in the metal. The charge-flow halts, and a voltage appears across the break.
