What is the difference between AC and DC current?
You have certainly heard of Direct current DC and alternating current AC ! You don’t know the difference yet? Don’t worry, this 1 minute read article is what you were looking for.
DC current was discovered by the scientist and businessman Thomas Edison. As I described in my previous article “What is electricity?” , it is just the movement of electrons. And DC current is just electrons flowing from a single direction.
At that time Thomas Edison ran a business of Electricity distribution using DC current. But it wasn’t safe and it lost significantly its power over a long distance. He tried all his best to protect his business until a genius discovered another way of doing it.
AC current discovered by the scientist Nikola Tesla, is electrons flowing back and forth in a single direction. In other words, the electrons keep flowing till it reaches its peak then change the polarity (direction) to reach the same point again. We call this a cycle. The rate in which the cycle repeats itself is called frequency and it’s measured by Hertz unit. 1 Hertz = number of cycles per second.
To do an analogy, your 50 Hertz light bulb at your house is flashing 50 times per second. Our slow eyes will never notice it.
But why did we switch all our home installation and distribution lines to the Alternating current?
Because it’s safe and easier to convert into lower or higher voltage.
Will we get rid of direct current?
The answer is NO. All electronic devices depend on it, and transistors ( the main components of all electronic devices) use DC current to operate. It is said. DC current still has a lot of advantages at the microscopic and macroscopic level as well.