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Ampere

physical science Maturity 11-13 Next article →

Electricity flows through wires like water through a pipe. We call this flow electric current. Scientists use a unit called the ampere to measure it. People often call it an amp for short.

The ampere is one of the seven base units in the International System of Units. It helps us describe how much electricity is moving. This measurement is very important for understanding how machines work.

To understand an ampere, we look at electric charge. Charge is measured in units called coulombs. One ampere is the amount of current that moves one coulomb past a point every second. You can also think of it as a count of tiny particles. One ampere is about $6.241 \times 10^{18}$ elementary charges moving every second.

This constant flow is what we call a steady current.

This unit is named after André-Marie Ampère. He was a French mathematician and physicist who lived from 1775 to 1836. He is known as the father of electromagnetism. He worked with another scientist named Hans Christian Ørsted. Together, they helped us understand how electricity and magnetism connect.

In 1881, an international convention named the ampere after him.

Ways to define the ampere have changed over time. Before 2019, scientists used the force between two wires. They measured the force between two parallel wires placed one metre apart. Now, the definition is much more steady. In 2019, the SI system fixed the value of the elementary charge. This means one ampere is now exactly $10^{18}$ elementary charges moving every second.

We use the ampere to find other important numbers. For example, power is the result of current and voltage. You can find power by multiplying these two things together. This means one ampere equals one watt divided by one volt.

You can measure current using a tool called a multimeter. This device also measures voltage and resistance. It helps us see how electricity behaves in our homes.

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