This time forty-five years ago, history was made as a man stepped onto the moon for the very first time.

Imagine the anticipation as millions of people around the world held their breath and then felt waves of overwhelming relief at the sound of the words: “The Eagle has landed.” The culmination of work of many scientists, engineers, electricians and researchers came together in that single moment as everyone anxiously waited to watch Neil Armstrong’s historic hop from the spacecraft onto the moon. This event, and the following Apollo explorations, drastically propelled the development of modern-day technology. According to NASA, a surprisingly large list of technologies would not exist today without the Apollo explorations.

Freeze-dried foods, like the MREs used by the military and FEMA, were first invented for space travel. The same software of a retail card-swiping machine is similar to software that was designed to manage a complex series of systems on the Apollo capsules.

Medical imaging devices, TV satellite dishes, inner-ear thermometers and cordless power tools are a few more, plus smoke detectors and other fireproof materials. You can also thank NASA for the joystick video game controllers you use for Mario Kart and Nintendo 64, and of course, Pac Man.

Additionally, you can thank Apollo explorations for your laptop. Since more mass converts to more cost on board the spacecrafts, the scientists aimed to make everything as lightweight as possible, including the technology. This same idea translated into technology on earth, and the concept is still relevant today, hence the MacBook Air.

Also, where would the world be without the Moonwalk dance? Michael would have had to come up with another slick move for his music video. Space exploration has also led to world-renown literature and movie series, such as Star Wars and Space Trek. Not only did the moon explorations spark creativity, but they also inspired many people around the world to embark on a career in math and science to further new inventions and explorations and (metaphorically and literally) reach the stars in their goals and dreams.

Do you have lots of electrical devices at home? Are they protected against damage? We are not talking about physical damage that is caused by dropping or breaking them accidentally but rather of electrical damage. When there are instances of electrical overload, power surges or even extreme weather conditions such as lightening, etc., your electrical devices will be at a risk of getting fried due to the excessive electricity passing through them.

This is why you should ground the electrical devices. Grounding provides a path for the excessive electricity to flow to the earth instead of you or any electrical device, thus preventing electricity shock or damage. Let us how it works.

How Does Grounding Work?

In any electric circuit, there is an active wire which supplies the power, a neutral wire which carries that current back and a ‘grounding wire’ which provides an additional path for electrical current to return safely to the ground without causing danger to anyone in the event of a short circuit. A copper conductor is connected from the metal rod of the wiring system to a set of terminals for ground connections in the service panel.

If you are interested in learning everything about electricity, you should start by understanding the basic components that make up any electrical design and how they work. Think about how the great pyramids of Egypt were built using just blocks of rock. The rocks themselves were nothing, but when combined with careful design they formed such grand structures!

Similarly, you need to know about the basic electrical components and how they work together to create wonderful modern electrical systems. Below you will find information about the most common electrical components:

The very first component that you should know about is the resistor. It is fairly easy to assume that a resistor, as the name suggests, will resist electricity that flows through it, and you would be correct in that assumption too! Any situation that demands the flow of current to be controlled at a desired level will require a resistor.

Here are two scenarios that better explain what a resistor does. In both cases, we will be turning on a LED:

Scenario 1 – Without Resistor

Scenario 2 – With Resistor

If a resistor is like a cushion that is used to control the flow of electricity, then capacitors are like small rechargeable batteries that store small amounts of charge in them. Capacitors do two things at the same time:

By so doing, they are able to stabilize almost any circuit. There are two types of capacitors that are primarily used:

I briefly alluded to LEDs in the scenarios that were used under “Resistors” above. LEDs are just like bulbs except that they are extremely reliable. You can find them on practically every appliance in your home that features some kind of an indicator light. A typical LED bulb can last decades with no sign of dying.

Since they are so reliable, they are used to indicate the state of current at any point in a circuit. An important task like checking the output voltage or current on a circuit becomes simpler with these light-based indicators.

The resistors, capacitors, and LEDs are the simple stuff in electrical circuits. Now, let us talk about the first complicated component – the transistor. Transistors are used to build complex electrical systems, such as amplifiers for instance. A simple way to understand transistors is to think of a switch. A basic switch has an “on” and an “off” state. These are controlled by the position of the switch, which is changed manually.

A transistor is a more advanced switch that has multiple output states. Unlike a switch, you cannot change these states manually. The only way to switch the transistor between various states is to run current through it. By controlling the current that flows through the transistor, you can control the output state to achieve the results you desire.