Talk:Ampere

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Contents 1 Old comments not in any section 2 Link suggestions 2.1 Outward links 3 Definition 4 I need more context please, to learn about this subject 5 Why is the letter "I" used in the mathematical formula? 6 erroneous definition for Ampere. 7 Ok, experts - but what is an Ampere? 8 multiples 9 Definition, Again 10 What is CA? 11 Plugs in India 12 What is a parameter?

[edit] Old comments not in any section

Any chance of a simple definition? One that a high school student could understand? VoltageX 01:49, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

The Ampere is still a base unit: see the page of the International Bureau of Measurement.

Still? Are you expecting them to change it? -- Tim Starling 13:28, Dec 16, 2003 (UTC)

Yes. Once we are able to reliably count individual electrons, that will be a much more precise way of measuring many electrical quantities. Then I expect the Coulomb to become the base unit -- re-defined as containing some arbitrary number of electrons -- and the Ampere re-defined as one Coulomb per second. --DavidCary 02:41, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Although amp is commonly used, the NIST defines amp as incorrect usage. It should be ampere or the symbol "A". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.188.106.66 (talk) 14:38, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

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>> The smallest commonly used submultiple of the ampere is the milliampere (mA), which is one thousandth of an ampere.

No way. One might write something like "Commonly used magnitudes range from 40 ampere home wiring down to picoampere bias currents of FET OPamps", but there are no true limits to this definition of 'commonly used'. — How about a table that compares light bulbs, a big CPU, LEDs, US/European home wiring, flashlights, transatlantic power lines, lightning bolts, car stereos, etc. ? It would take up half the space of the current article though (don't you hate that pun). Femto 15:11, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Link suggestions

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[edit] Outward links

• Can link cross-section: ...allel conductors of infinite length, of negligible circular cross-section, and placed one [[metre]] apart in vacuum, would produce be...

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[edit] Definition

From what I can determine from the article, it seems that the ampere and the coulomb are defined in terms of each other. Am I correct in assuming this? Leenewton 3 July 2005 11:55 (UTC)

It appears that way at first, but if you read closer into the article you'll find the actual definition. (Something about two wires of infinite length and 1 newton of force between them.)

As far as the definition, is the sentence, "Although this is the internationally accepted definition, one should realize that it does not actually make sense, either grammatically or mathematically." actually meant seriously. It sounds like a joke (and a good one) so if it is true, it could maybe use some explanation. If it's a joke, I suggest we leave it.65.103.203.34 04:48, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I need more context please, to learn about this subject

I appreciate knowing the technical information about how amperes can be exactly defined. But, it doesn't help me with what I came here to learn. The fact that something has a way in which it is exactly measured doesn't tell me a thing about how the thing is experienced in the real world.

It's like saying a clock second or minute is defined as a certain amount of radiation from caesium-133. A unit of time is something we experience in a certain way in our world, daily. How much can you think in a second or a minute? how much can you speak in that amount of time? How wet will you get in the rain in a minute?

I need to have an explanation about these scientific issues which relates to the context in which they are used and experienced.

What is an ampere? How is that measurement used in electrical circuits? Is an ampere a measurement of how much potential energy is there, or how much kinetic energy is there? To use a syllogism, is an ampere like the bulk of water flowing down a river past any given juncture in it - or is an ampere like the force that water has when it hits the same rock before falling over the waterfall? Rainbird 17:59, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

____________________

The definitions do exactly what you ask: relate the unit to a physical phenomenon reproducible in a laboratory. You cannot define the second in human terms because all the measurements you mention are inherently very variable. Rain is not a universally steady phenomenon, for example.

(By the way, the unit of time is defined by the frequency of the radiation of a particular transition of Cs-133, not by the amount of radiation, which would be a measurement of energy)

Getting back to the ampere, it is a quantity of electric charge per unit of time, so the hydraulic analogue would be the quantity of water flowing by per unit of time (cubic metres per second, for example). The force necessary to push the water through depends on the resistance opposed by the river's bed; the electric analogue is electric resistance, and the force required the voltage. These three quantities are related to each other through Ohm's law.

Urhixidur 01:34, 2005 August 18 (UTC)

____________________

Well... thank you for your comments, Urhixidur. I very much appreciate you taking a moment to explain this to me. Now, you talk about electricity requiring a force to push itself through a circuit. That would be a different stuff than the force which electricity itself, exerts, when it does it's work. Right? Another thing which I've always been curious about, is that an ampere seems to be something of a relative measurement. An ampere of electrical current would be a different amount, if you are working with 1.5volts of direct current, than if you were working of 115volts of alternating current. Is this correct?

You say the only definition needed here, is one framed up in terms of how the thing exactly can be scientifically calculated. Wikipedia is resource used by the general public, and not only by scientists who work in laboratories. I would say that there is more context needed. Everything in the world around us interacts with everything else. There are always larger contexts to put our observations into. And when we look at the larger picture, we gain a more comprehensive understanding of everything which is involved. For instance, I would like to see this article expanded, in a way which illustrates exactly how electricians, makers of computer equipment, and other technicians think and relate to the idea of amperes. For contrast, it should also be explained where they use measurements of watts, resistance, and voltage. Thus, I still insist that an ampere is a thing, which needs to be described in terms of how it is experienced in the real world; and we shouldn't be content with only a brief description of how it can be exactly measured. Rainbird 21:09, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

____________________

« ... electricity requiring a force to push itself through a circuit. That would be different from the force which electricity itself, exerts, when it does its work. Right? »

Nope. Same force. The easiest way (and most frequently used) to get electricity to do work for you is to have it heat stuff (stove tops, space heaters) or give off light (light bulbs). The electricity is forced through a resisting medium, and the resulting energy deposited in the medium radiates away as heat or light (a light bulb works because of a filament heated to white-heat, so its the same mechanism at work).

« ... An ampere of electrical current would be a different amount, if you are working with 1.5 volts of direct current, than if you were working of 115 volts of alternating current. Is this correct? »

Essentially yes. An ampere at low voltage is not the same as an ampere at high voltage. The water analogy would be a litre of water at low pressure versus a litre of water at high pressure. More energy in the latter. For direct current, the power (energy per unit of time) is equal to the voltage times the amperage (with alternating current, it's also true but there is a constant that has to be factored in to account for the time-varying voltage).

For the context you ask for, you are right in a way, but it is not the Ampere article's place; try the more general articles dealing with eletrical theory. Because you cannot compare amperages beyond saying that they represent varying quantities of electric charge per unit of time without specifying the other key factors: the resistance and voltage involved. A lightning bolt delivers a huge amperage (30 to 300 kiloamperes) but over a very short time. About the only other human-scale titbit I can dredge up at this juncture is this one: it's not the voltage of an electric shock that stops your heart (static elctricity sparks you generate by rubbing your feet on carpet is in the kilovolts range, but it can't kill you), its the amperage. It takes about 2 amperes to stop a heart from beating.

Urhixidur 03:09, 2005 August 21 (UTC)

____________________

All I see here, in what you say, is that you have a rubber ruler which you're working with. You explain that an ampere, figuratively speaking, is a measurement of volume, which does not indicate the same amount of volume, every time you use the term.

So, is the concept that voltage is a way of compressing energy? Somehow, you're able to have more electricity in any given length of that wire. This would mean it has more potential to spring back, and release the energy which was given to it, originally.

I can tell that you are a person who is fond of mathematics, and of theories which have to do with what mathematics can tell us about something.

I have to again insist, however, that there is a need for the general public to learn what these concepts mean. If you explain amperes with the language of mathematics, only, you have not communicated the definition of that concept to the ears of the public with symbols which they have in their language.

post script - I see that you are fleshing the article out a bit with the electrical safety issue. Good idea. I think the most common place people see the term "ampere" is on fuses in a fuse box.--Rainbird 06:37, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

You're reading me wrong (my mistake in writing just "litre" earlier, when I meant "litre per second"). The hydraulic analogue of amperage is not volume, it is flow rate, that is to say, volume per unit of time. And there is no fluctuation: an ampere is an ampere is an ampere. It's just that amperage, by itself, is not enough to describe unambiguously an electrical phenomenon. Going back to the unavoidable hydraulic analogy, a flow of x litres per second is an incomplete description: that flow going through a one-inch square aperture is under a lot more pressure than the same flow spread over a frontage of one kilometre (and even then one would need to specify the height of the water front to gauge its speed and pressure).

Voltage, in its turn, is not a way of "compressing" energy, it is a measure of the energy associated with the electricity. Specifically, a volt is a joule per coulomb, so it designates a very specific amount of energy attached to each unit of electric charge. Thinking in terms of the "amount of electricity" in a wire is misleading, but the analogy between a loaded spring and the voltage of an electrical supply is not a bad one.

Urhixidur 17:26, 2005 August 21 (UTC)

[edit] Why is the letter "I" used in the mathematical formula?

I understand that C is used for specific heat so we couldn't use it for current. But is there a relationship between current and the letter "I"? Is it latin? thanks for help

I've read *somewhere* that "I" was chosen since it stood for "Intensity". As a consequence, electrical engineers use "j" where mathematicians use "i" for the imaginary unit. With only 26 letters, overloading will occur, which is why advanced mathematicians must know English, Greek, Hebrew and other alphabets. ( Oh, and you can sign your posts with --~~~~, or use the signature button in the default editor.) --Wtshymanski 20:44, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Insertformulaheremegaampere

[edit] erroneous definition for Ampere.

just to let you know that i corrected a serious error "Alternate exact definition" that you made to the SI definition of the unit of electric current, Ampere. it's amazing that this error was left uncorrected for more than 18 months. in an article about objective physical convention, please be careful with applying words like "definition" and "exactly". do not apply those terms to things that are neither definitions nor exact. Rbj 01:04, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

I love a good argument. Considering:

1) CIPM, 1988, Recommendation 2 (PV, 56, 45 and Metrologia, 1989, 26, 70) recommends « that 25 812.807 W exactly be adopted as a conventional value, denoted by R_K-90, for the von Klitzing constant, R_K ».

2) CIPM, 1988, Recommendation 1 (PV, 56, 44 and Metrologia, 1989, 26, 69) recommends « that 483 597.9 GHz/V exactly be adopted as a conventional value, denoted by K_J-90 for the Josephson constant, K_J ».

3) Since K_J = 2he and R_K = 1/he², we have e = 2/(R_KK_J)

4) Hence the exact value quoted originally (defining the Ampere-second in terms of 1/e = R_KK_J with no loss of precision).

It should be understood, however, that this exact value is not endorsed by the CIPM, which was careful to state that « Recommendations 1 (CI-1988) and 2 (CI-1988) do not constitute a redefinition of Sl units. The conventional values KJ-90 and RK-90 cannot be used as bases for defining the volt and the ohm (meaning the present units of electromotive force and electrical resistance in the Système International d’Unités (SI)). To do so would change the status of µ₀ from that of a constant having an exactly defined value (and would therefore abrogate the definition of the ampere) and would also produce electrical units which would be incompatible with the definition of the kilogram and units derived from it. »

This "contradiction" holds true only if one keeps the original definition of the ampere, which is why I presented this as an alternate definition. So, you are right in saying it is not a definition --not an official one--, but you are wrong in claiming the value is not exact.

Urhixidur 02:34, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

baloney. the value is not exact because we do not know exactly what the elementary charge, measured in ampere-seconds is. the SI unite called the "ampere" is defined in such a way that the permeability constant is exactly 4 π x 10^-7 (in SI units), the ampere together with the definition of the second are combined to define the SI unit of charge, the coulomb. all of these definitions are made without any reference to the elementary charge. the elementary charge plays no role in defining the Ampere nor the Coulomb. given these definitions, then physicists go about to measure the elementary charge and that is published along with their degree of uncertainty. Rbj 03:55, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

You're missing the point. The value is exact because there are no missing decimals. This has nothing to do with whether the value is correct or not. Urhixidur 16:26, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

no, Urhixidur, you missed the point. the values you give for R_K-90 K_J-90 are neither exactly the values you state, nor are they exactly known, given how units like the kilogram and ampere are defined. the result, that the elementary charge comes out to be the reciprocal of exactly 6.241 509 629 152 65×10¹⁸ in coulombs, is misleading. it implies that the elementary charge is exactly known (and it's a little off from known values). Rbj 17:28, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

i made another fix. Urhixidur, we don't put "definitions" into Wikipedia that are not official definitions. or, at the very least, definitions that are not logically and substantively equivalent to the official definitions. take a look at the kilogram page. they put in these other proposed definitions in another section. if the proposed definition gets adopted by the "governing bodies", whoever they are, then Wikipedia's definition should be changed. not until then.

Nicely done. Urhixidur 16:26, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

BTW, your conventional values for R_K-90 K_J-90 do not agree exactly to the current 2002 CODATA values. One is even outside the standard uncertainty. So, now that they have newer revised values for those constants, I highly doubt that even if they adopt this proposed definition for the kilogram that the result of the defined value for the elementary charge will come out to be the reciprocal of exactly 6.241 509 629 152 65×10¹⁸ in coulombs. By the currently accepted values for R_K-90 K_J-90, that's already too far off. Rbj 04:49, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Hey, it's not my convention, it is the CIPM's. SI has been moving steadily towards pinning the unit definitions to universal, natural phenomena. Taking the second as a starting point, the speed of light ties it to the metre. This leaves two degrees of freedom: the ampere and the kilogram. If the Josephson and von Klitzing constants (R_K-90 and K_J-90) are used, this pins the ampere, and one can preserve the permeability constant by finally defining the kilogram from the force between conductors (as detailed in the kg article). Of course, as the CODATA values make clear, the CIPM conventional values are definitely off, which is another way of saying the "new" ampere and kilogram would be substantially different from their current values. No doubt this is in part what has prevented (and likely will continue to prevent) the new potential definitions from being adopted. The key point to realise is that the definitions of the ampere and the kilogram should go hand in hand, and that nobody disputes that the current kilogram (defined by an arbitrary lump of metal alloy) is a bad choice. Urhixidur 16:26, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

i dunno why you appeal to an 18 year old convention that conflicts with the harmonized 4 year old measurement, that was in fact not adopted an the SI definition, for anything. it's dumb. those values for R_K-90 and K_J-90 are not accurate. they have revised values for that today and those revised values do not agree with your values.

really what you're talking about is a redefinition of the kilogram in such a way that preserving the permeablity, μ₀ to what it is, will also fix the value of the elementary charge e, to an exact value. but there are two mistakes that you are making. first, they might redefine the kg to fix Planck's constant, h, to an exact value instead (instead of choosing to fix e). i think that is more likely after reading papers from Peter Mohr and Barry Taylor. second, if they change the definition of the kg away from the Paris prototype so such that fixes either h or e, they will do it in such a way so that at the time of the change of definition, there will be no change in the numerical value of the constant they're fixing. as measurements are improved or revised, then the mass of a kilogram (more precise what we believe it to be) will drift away from the mass of the prototype, but the fixed constant will remain. but since we already have a newer and different value for e, given our present base unit definitions, there's less than an ice cube's chance in hell that they will ever redefine a Coulomb to be precisely 6.241 509 629 152 65×10¹⁸ elementary charges. that number is crap. it is already outside the std. uncertainty of the known value of e. but in any case, it ain't the definition and to say it is, is misleading. Rbj 17:28, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

okay, Urhixidur, i believe and hope that i came to a revision that is substantively accurate and is acceptable to you. if and when the kg gets redefined in such a manner as to set the elementary charge to be virtually e = 1.602176491612271×10^-19 C, then your alternative definition of the ampere will be functionally equivalent to the present definition. since they haven't yet done that (and they might not, i would be rooting for them to define the kg to fix h instead), the alternative definition is not functionally equivalent to the official definition, so it isn't yet a definition, but is a proposed definition. actually, since the definition of the ampere need not change from its present definition fixing μ₀ = 4 π ×10^-7 H/m, this redefinition of the kg does not change the definition of the ampere, but creates a functionally equivalent alternate definition (that is not in force, presently). i hope these last changes to the ampere and kilogram article meet with your approval. Rbj 01:03, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Looks good enough for now. I would also like to see a discussion (maybe in the metrology article, but more likely in the SI article) of degrees of freedom of the system of units, and of the continuing drive to tie each unit to known physical phenomenon. It would tie in nicely with the similar discussion already extant about the differences between the CGS esu and emu systems.

Don't think I'm pushing for KJ-90 and RK-90 to become enshrined (like c already is). They're too obscure —compared to Planck's constant, for one.

Urhixidur 02:02, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

RK-90 is just a conventional value. It cant be made exact by redefining the kilogram because the von Klitzing constant equals half the speed of light times the magnetic permeability of free space divided by the fine-structure constant. The speed of light and the permeability of free space are already defined as 299792458 m/s and 4π/10^7 N/A^2 respectively, so we'd need to know the exact value of the fine structure constant to do that. --Army1987 09:33, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Army here. Even though the elementary charge can be defined to an exact value (which would result in a valid alternative definition of the Ampere to be a specified number of elementary charges per second passing a boundary) by redefining the kilogram, that doesn't mean it would do it by redefining R_K and K_J, but just e. However, I still think it's more likely that they'll redefine the kg to set Planck's constant to a defined value instead. Perhaps we should take out all of the talk of R_K-90 and K_J-90 in the alternative definition. r b-j 19:56, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

It's six of one, half a dozen of the other; of h, K_J, R_K, and α, you need only pick any two (remember that µ₀ ≡ 4π×10⁻⁷ N/A²):

h =	h	e²·RK	2·e/KJ	µ0·c·e²/2·α
RK =	h/e²	RK	2/e·KJ	µ0·c/2·α
KJ =	2·e/h	2/e·RK	KJ	4·α/µ0·c·e
α =	µ0·c·e²/2·h	µ0·c/2·RK	µ0·c·e·KJ/4	α

You can also express e in terms of any pair of the others (except R_K and α): e = (h/R_K)^1/2 = h·K_J/2 = 2·h·α/µ₀·c = 2/R_K·K_J = 4·α/µ₀·c·K_J

--Urhixidur 14:58, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

just because there are expressions of R_K in terms of h/e² or 2/e·K_J, it doesn't matter. µ₀ and c are defined and α is a primary measurement (being that it is dimensionless and we actually measure dimensionless values). so even it it appears you can define R_K to be some conventional constant (by redefining the kg to set h and e to some values or to set e and K_J), you can't. if the conventional value for R_K puts it outside µ₀·c/2·α and α is the only measured quantity and is outside of the standard uncertainty of the what you would get for α resulting from that conventional R_K, the that conventional value just cannot be right, given the present state of knowledge. r b-j 17:37, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ok, experts - but what is an Ampere?

How does a layman judge amps as a unit of electricity? How can the term be understood by layman? Ill give you an example from an article about diesel-electric locomotives: This 270,000-pound (122,470-kg) locomotive is designed to tow passenger-train cars at speeds of up to 110 miles per hour (177 kph). The diesel engine makes 3,200 horsepower, and the generator can turn this into almost 4,700 amps of electrical current. The four drive motors use this electricity to generate over 64,000 pounds of thrust.

Now, what in the blazes does this term 4,700 amps of electrical current mean? I usually hear of the term "kilowatt". If a reader can't figure it out from the article, it's useless. (The same article goes on to measure another generator as producing kw.)Scott Adler 08:16, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

if the reference to amps in that other article is uninformative, take it out. but the definition here is, i think, physically explicit. amperes is a measure of electric current, how rapidly electrical charge is moving past a boundary of some sort. it is precisely a Coulomb per second, but the ampere is defined first (from this setup with parallel wires and magnetic force) and then the coulomb is defined to be the charge that passes, in 1 second, a boundary of which a 1 ampere is flowing. r b-j 02:54, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Without specifying the voltage, the amperage figure is useless. --Urhixidur 14:13, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

the ampere figure is useful for telling one how fat the conductors have to be. (the voltage would be useful to determine how much insulation they need on those conductors.) r b-j 17:39, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] multiples

Please don't remove multiples, for consistency they are in all seven base SI units.

[edit] Definition, Again

The definition is inconsistent. At one point the article says at an ampere is the "amount" of charge, and later it says that an ampere has nothing to do with quantity. This is patently inconsistent. PLEASE CHANGE IMMEDIATELY. 76.24.28.237 00:23, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

You need to distinguish between the definition and the relationship to charge. The definition is not in terms of charge, but in terms of forces, lengths, and such already defined base units. Charge is defined later as a derived unit. This is not so intuitive, but is the way the SI system is built up. An ampere is indeed an amount of charge displaced per second, but that's not how it is defined. It's not inconsistent. AND WHAT'S THE RUSH? Dicklyon 00:31, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

I re-ordered the section to make it more clear. I hope you find it less contradictory. Dicklyon 00:40, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Was Ampere originally a unit of charge? This quote seems to say so

Readers of my paper are requested to bear in mind that it was written so long ago that the Ampere was still understood to mean the electromagnetic unit quantity of electricity of the Ohm series. The term is now always applied to the unit current.

—George Johnstone Stoney, 1894[1]

— Omegatron 18:09, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What is CA?

This spec sheet: http://www.thunder-sky.com/pdf/200725164258.pdf , talks about current in unit of CA. What is CA? Thanks, Daniel.Cardenas 14:46, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

In the battery charging rate 3CA, the A is for Amps and the C is for capacity, made nondimensional. If you have a 1 AmpHour battery, C is 1, and you can charge it at 3 A. Usually the A is omitted and his is referred to as a 3C charge rate, meaning you can charge the battery in not much more than 1/3 hour. Dicklyon 18:38, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Its a 40 AmpHour battery. Does this mean C is 40 and you can charge it a max of 120 amps? I'm wondering if this kind of information should go into the main article. I don't see how. Thanks! Daniel.Cardenas 23:10, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes that's what it means; no it doesn't belong in the Ampere article. Dicklyon 23:46, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Plugs in India

What is the difference between a 5 amp plug and a 16 amp plug and for which different electrical appliances these are used. Vivek. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.253.3.21 (talk) 06:23, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

I have put a title on this section, based on the IP address 124.253.3.21 being in India. Perhaps someone familiar with electric power in India can answer. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 13:28, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] What is a parameter?

what is aparameter —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.0.25.118 (talk) 16:07, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

The word "parameter" does not appear in the article, nor on this talk page; where did you see the word? One meaning is an argument to a mathematical function. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 16:12, 27 May 2008 (UTC)