Conductors and its Various Configurations
Keywords:
Metals, conductor, scissors, paper clip, aluminum foilAbstract
The electrons of different types of atoms have different degrees of freedom to move around.
With some types of materials, such as metals, the outermost electrons in the atoms are so
loosely bound that they chaotically move in the space between the atoms of that material by
nothing more than the influence of room-temperature heat energy. Because these virtually
unbound electrons are free to leave their respective atoms and float around in the space
between adjacent atoms, they are often called free electrons. In other types of materials such
as glass, the atoms' electrons have very little freedom to move around. While external forces
such as physical rubbing can force some of these electrons to leave their respective atoms
and transfer to the atoms of another material, they do not move between atoms within that
material very easily. This relative mobility of electrons within a material is known as electric
conductivity. Conductivity is determined by the types of atoms in a material (the number of
protons in each atom's nucleus, determining its chemical identity) and how the atoms are
linked together with one another. Materials with high electron mobility (many free electrons)
are called conductors, while materials with low electron mobility (few or no free electrons)
are called insulators. A conductor is something which allows electricity to flow through. An
example of a conductor is: scissors, paper clip, aluminum foil etc. These materials are made
up of atoms whose electrons can move away freely.