A Basic Introduction into Electronics
                                        Written By: Xomgromit formerly Jaded

                                                                Atomic Structure
                                                                        Section 1

         To understand the basics of electronics, we must go all the way back to the atomic structure, and the table of elements. The atom consist of 3 parts, the neutron, the proton, and finally the electron, Elements are formed by different configurations of the three parts, the Neutron as you may have guessed is neutral in charge, whereas the proton has a positive charge, and the electron has a negative charge. A basic element may look like this following diagram, however since atoms are to small for even the strongest Microscopes to see, we have to rely on what previous scientist have stated.

                                                                      Figure 1-1
 
 
         As shown the Protons, and Neutrons are in the center (Illustrated by P for Proton, and N for Neutron) or rather called the Nucleus of the atom, and the electrons are spread out on rings surrounding the Nucleus. However why did I label the outer ring Valence ring? That's the ring we will focus on in the study of basic electronics. For current to flow, thru a wire electrons must jump from atom to atom, however electrons in normal rings can not jump off the atom, that's what makes the outer ring (Valence ring) special to us. Electrons on this ring, can jump from atom to atom, you may ask what effect does this pose to the atom it jumps from, or the atom it jumps to? Well to have a balanced atom you must have a equal number of electrons, and protons. So when a electron jumps off this atom it becomes unbalanced, making it more positively charged, giving us instead of a atom we now have a positive ion. Confused yet? Wait theres more, the atom that receives the electron becomes unbalanced the other way. Making it a Negative ion, however if you have ever played with magnets, notice how a negative side of a magnet is attracted to a positive side of a magnet? Thats what makes this so special when the electron jumps off one atom, it makes it more positive so a electron from another atom may decide to jump to that one, and this repeats all the time, everything in the world, wood, metal, plastic all have molecules of atoms to make them up. And atoms are always moving, but what makes everything so solid to us. Remember the charges of the atoms keep electrons jumping from atom to atom, but it also keeps it from falling apart. That is the basic theory behind electron flow, which leads up to electronics. In a circuit you have a positive side of the power source and a negative side, now when the circuit is closed (that means has a complete path) current flows from the negative side to the positive side. Well now that I've flown off on a tangent let us get back to the atomic structure, and have a brief review of whats been said so far     Next tho, I'll teach you how to read and understand the periodic table of elements, the main math equation to remember is 2N2 basicly, as in the case of many other special fields, electronics is based on the language of math, and the way this math equation says in lamens terms, 2 x N (N = the ring number if its the first ring counting from the inside out it would be one, counting outward) then you have 2 which is just a way of saying that number times itself, the correct name is squared so to figure out how many electrons are allowed on the rings, you can use 2N2 . Lets do one together the Hydrogen atom,  shown in figure 1-1, 2 x 1 x 1 = 2 so the first ring can have a total possible number of electrons as 2, however as the number on the periodic table of elements shows Hydrogen has 1 electron, so we illustrate it as shown in figure 1-1, if you had more then 2 electrons that would decern you would need another ring, so the figure would then be 2 x 2 x 2 = 8  so the second ring can have a total of 8 electrons, understand yet? ok we can do the third ring too,  2 x 3 x 3 = 18, if you don't understand this consept now, don't worry later we will head into algerba and further our study into math the language of electronics, for now your just going to have to trust me.
      Thats just one of the few links for a periodic table, the numbers in the top left corner of the element are it's number of atoms it contains. In electronics however only the electrons on the outter ring concern us, as stated above. Conductive materials 1 to 2 electrons on the valence ring, are as the name states good conductors, and are mainly elements like copper, silver, gold, copper being the best of the three I've mentioned. Next we have semi-conductors, which resist electricity a little better, they have 3 to 6 electrons in there valence ring (which can also be called valence band) finally we have Non-conductors like rubber, which have 7 or 8 electrons in there valence band. From this point it's time to advance to basic electronics.

                                                    Voltage, Current, and Resistance
                                                                            Section 2

    This section will explain the difference between voltage, current, and resistance. As well as explain how there relationship to electronics is.

     Voltage = V measured in volts (couldn't have guessed that one eh?)
                Voltage is defined as the Potential to get work done, and believe it or not Voltage isn't the killer, proof to back this up will be evident by the end of this section.
 
    Current = A measured in Ampere's, Amps are the flow of electricity, pushed by the voltage, current is what kills people, and for all the math guru's out there heres how many coulombs it would take to make one amp of current 6.2518 Roughly just take 6.25 times itself 18 times and thats about how many coulombs it takes to make one ampere of current. Neat isn't it :)

    Resistance = R measured in ohms. defined as the resistance to the flow of current.

            Combine these 3 and you have the ability to figure out circuits, using Ohms law E = I x R ;
I = E / R; R = E / I

                                                                Figure 2-1

        Meet the basic circuit, the series of short and long lines, is a battery symbol or can be used as a DC voltage source, the slanted lines that reverse back and forth is a resistor, now Figure 2-1 gives us one of the 3 parts of the equation for circuit analysis it gives us Ohms, which is resistance. If we were to attach to this a voltage you from the knowledge from this essay could figure out the current going thru this circuit. by the way theres 3 different kinds of circuits, and for now we will stick with the first series circuits. (Just for the people who want to know the other two there Parallel, and Series-Parallel) so lets attach a voltage of 5 V to this...now using I = E / R, you could solve this equation. It would come out as .5 or 500 Milliamperes of current. Back to some math side points moving the period 3 spaces left makes it Milli which is 10-3  Translated to decimal places this would be 0.01 since we have made it this far I think it's logical to give names and the do's and don't of moving the decimal place, moving it left makes it a negative superscript number, below is a list showing the number of decimal places moved, and the scientific name for it
 
Milli -3 Kilo 3
Micro -6 Mega 6
Nano -9 Giga 9
Pico -12 Terra 12
    So using this chart it shows why hard-drives are measured in Megabytes, 1 Megabyte = 1,000,000 pretty nifty eh? Now for the final part of A Basic Introduction to Electronics

    As mentioned above amperes are what kill people, and if you have a Ohm-meter handy you can measure your personal resistance, by taking one probe between the fingers of your left hand, and the other probe between your fingers of your right hand, hold them lightly and then take your reading and apply a voltage, like lets say you had 1 Megaohm of resistance and you got hit by 5 volts, the current running thru your body would be 5 Micro-ohms, basicly you wouldn't feel a thing, by applying different voltages you can see how much your body can take max and how much it would take to kill you

                    Heres the chart
 
 
100 Milliamperes and below   Not much doubt you'd even feel it
200 to 400 Milliamperes     Point of sensation kinda tingly 
500 to 600 Milliamperes     Painful yet you can still let go
700 to 800 Milliamperes     Very Painful loss of muscle control can't let go, and heart fribulations
900 mA (mA = Milliampere) to 1 Amp    and above = Death 
 

            Thanks for taking the time to read this essay, In time there will be more of them from me, until then hope the two I have made help :)
                                                                                            ID - Xomgromit