Osmosis

 So you put salted water in a 'U' shapes tube, and put a semi-permeable membrane in the middle of that tube. Now there are two parts inside the tube, separated by a semi-permeable membrane. You put a turbine in the part where the water is more concentrated with salt. The pressure changes, moves the water, and that spin the turbine enough to spin the magnet of a generator.
This, is one of the things you can call osmosis.

Osmosis is a type of diffusion. Osmosis can occur when there is a partially permeable membrane, such as a cell membrane.
When a cell is submerged in water, the water molecules pass through the cell membrane from an area of low solute concentration to high solute concentration (e.g. if the cell is submerged in saltwater, water molecules move out; if it is submerged in freshwater, however, water molecules move in); this is called osmosis. This happens, because the setup is trying to 'even out' the concentration of salt inside the tube, maintaining an equilibrium.
This is, what I think is called; Osmosis.

Conservation of Energy

Energy can be neither created nor be destroyed, but it may change forms and be transferred from and to different objects in a never-ending cycle.

In physics, the law of conservation of energy states that the total energy (supply?) of an isolated system will not, should not, and cannot change—it is said to be conserved over time.

The law states that the total amount of energy present, has been there since the very start and will continue to stay at that amount. During the (incredibly long) time span that energy existed, it would have changed forms millions upon millions of times every time something happens. 

Say, when a coconut fell from a tree and unto the ground- potential energy changes into kinetic energy. Once it hit the ground, bounces a few times and stops moving- it turns into potential again.

But during those events, the energy never disappeared. It just keeps changing, and changing, and changing. Whether it may be from potential to chemical to kinetic to thermal. It just kept changing, and will continue to do so until the end of time.

And that, is the law of energy conservation in a nutshell. It should be noted that the conservation of energy only applies to hypothetical isolated systems and may (or may not) apply to exposed systems.

Magneto!

Every time you play and fiddle with that horseshoe magnet in your science class, you probably have questioned; "How does this things work?" Which is what I'm gonna answer within next 5 minutes.

What is a magnet?
A Magnet is an object that contains magnetism.

Magnetism is an attraction or repulsion that acts within an area of effect. This is due to the existence of a magnetic field, which is caused by movements of electrical charged particles.

A magnet is an object that shows a strong magnetic field. It attracts other magnets as well as ferromagnetic minerals like iron or cobalt.

Magnets have 2 "poles", the North and the South poles. The concept of poles should not be taken literally: it is merely a way of referring to the two different ends of a magnet. A magnet does not have distinct north or south particles on opposing sides. If a bar magnet is broken into two pieces, in an attempt to separate the north and south poles, the result will be two bar magnets, each of which has both a north and south pole. Opposite poles attract each other.

If you have nothing to do, here are somethings to have fun with:
- Heat a magnet past its Curie temperature; this will 'erase' all magnetism.
- Heat a piece of ferromagnetic metal, heat it past its Curie temperature, and cool it down near a magnet as you hammer it. This will magnetize the metal.

IRL Circuits

I have had a really bad left knee, apparently caused by "lumping muscle fibers", which in turn is caused by lack of stretching. I find that rather odd, as even with that lack of stretching i was flexible. Like I-can-do-splits flexible.

Anyway, that killed my motives. But after fixing the diagnosed problem with some hot water and 15 minutes of stretching, i feel better than ever and I am back to teach you s'more boring sciency stuff.

Speaking of which; a few days ago I had the opportunity to try and make some circuits with a team of friends. I specifically, with the help and partnership of the pleasant Nanda (you can find her here) and some advice from my old friend Su- I mean Enclair focused on the making of a working model of a parallel circuit, in which we did it wonderfully.

And I also got to read some poems by Falin, in exchange for some wiring. They're not the best, gotta be honest, but they were refreshing. Being able to see love from the eyes (or words) of a girl is a nice change. But honestly, i should've traded for some hot coffee instead. The weather has been nothing but miserable lately.


SO-
Since I am a kind and benevolent person, I will un-reluctantly share the directions that you can do to make your own IRL Circuit!

You will need;

1. 1-2 meters of electrical wiring (make sure it's marked under 600v)
2. Batteries
3. Small Light Bulbs - Alternatives are small DC Motors and the such
4. Alligator Clips (if need be)
5. An electric switch

Steps that you will take:

1.  Make sure everything is wired up
2. Flick the switch on

Haha. Yeah, i know. That wasn't very informative. But the thing is, making these things can use some creativity, improvisation, and a lot of trial and error. So it'll be more fun to try it our yourselves!

But here's a basic diagram you can follow.

And here are some tips you can follow:

• Make sure the output of your battery/ies don't exceed 150% of the resistance inside the circuit. Whatever you're using, be it a bulb or a motor, will fry to death off of electron overdose.
• The opposite also applies. If the resistance is higher than the electric current, the thing won't turn on.
• You can save space for batteries by using higher output ones, or by using battery holders.
• Alligator clips will give you an easier time. Once you manage to get them on.
• Keep a lighter (or another source of fire) close by. You need to expose the copper fibers within the cable to be able to do anything with them; and the only way to do that is to burn off the insulation. Heat one point, then pull it off.

And if you can make it functional, AND look good (like what is done here by Dara) then i'll take my hat off for you and scream kudos.

Consult your local physics teacher for details.

Battle of the Currents

I'm tired and sore so let's make this one quick and snappy.

Direct Current:
Direct Current is the flow of electricity traveling in one direction, following the direction the medium (cable) goes.
A direct current transfers electricity in the single direction constantly, meaning that the electrons going from the source (cell, generator, etc) go in a constant stream without ever stopping unless the circuit breaks. This is why DC is sometimes described as Zero Frequency, because it never stops, it never starts for a second time in one setting.

The thing about DC is that it is not very economic at higher scales. A high voltage DC setup would require more resources than a high voltage AC setup. And you can expect high voltage currents to be able to travel longer distances, which is why DC is rarely used at larger scales.

They are however, great for small scale circuits, like electronic devices. They require less space, are easier to control and manage, and a lot easier to set up than AC. They great at running smaller machines during periods of light load and improving reliability.

Direct-current systems could be directly used with storage batteries, providing valuable load-leveling and backup power during interruptions of generator operation

Alternating Current:
AC - an electric current of which magnitude and direction vary, unlike direct current, whose direction remains constant.
Alternating current works by switching the current many times back and forth constantly. Going back to the source it came from

AC voltage may be increased or decreased with a transformer. Use of a higher voltage leads to significantly more efficient transmission of power.
This means that when transmitting a fixed power on a given wire, if the current is doubled, the power loss will be four times greater.
Thus, the same amount of power can be transmitted with a lower current by increasing the voltage. It is therefore advantageous when transmitting large amounts of power to distribute the power with high voltages (often hundreds of kilovolts).

 However, high voltages also have disadvantages, the main one being the increased insulation required, and generally increased difficulty in their safe handling (e.g any electronic device unfit to handle them would explode in a beautiful shower of electrons).
In a power plant, power is generated at a convenient voltage for the design of a generator, and then stepped up to a high voltage for transmission. Near the loads, the transmission voltage is stepped down to the voltages used by equipment. If not, then as i said previously; electronic device unfit to handle them would explode in a beautiful shower of potentially dangerous electrons.


AC can use high voltages with smaller current to reduce losses when you send power.
AC reduces the heating in the wires.
DC power would be sent but would lose a lot of energy and you would have to put more work in it to send it great distances.

BUT AC isn't used in electronic devices (like gadgets) because the set up would be too difficult to effectively use. It would be too large and too expensive for smaller electronic products looking for a larger market share using smaller prices.

Circuits

When cells were first invented the theory of electron flow mentioned above was unknown. Rather it was incorrectly assumed that the movement was from the positive to negative terminal.
The electron from the negative terminal is already negatively charged and acts as the destination for the positive terminal. This is called the “Coventional Current Flow”.

Then there are 2 main types of circuits; the series and parallel circuit.
For details see below.

Series Circuits:
-The electrical current through each component is the same, as all the current has to flow through everything in the circuit. When there is only one path you can go through, you have to face all the challenges along that path.

-The potential difference across each component adds up to the potential difference across the battery. This is because the energy transferred from the battery to the electrons must equal the amount of energy transferred by the electrons to the components; otherwise the components would fail to operate at maximum capacity.

- The total resistance across the components in series is equal to the sum of each resistance across the components. The potential difference is largest across the component with the greatest resistance as more energy is transferred by the electrons to overcome the resistance.

Parallel Circuits:
- The total current through the whole circuit is the sum of the current through each electrical component. The current in a parallel circuit branches out after leaving the battery and recombines before entering back in.

- The potential difference across each component is the same. Somehow.

-The combined resistance across the components in parallel is less than either of the separate resistance across the components.


Reference material:
http://www.passmyexams.co.uk/GCSE/physics/conventional-current-series-circuit-parallel-circuit.html

Potential Differences

In an electrical circuit a cell pushes the electrons around the circuit.

It does this by transferring chemical energy from the (chemical) materials in the cell to electrical potential energy of/for the electrons.

When electrons pass through an electric device, say a motor; in the circuit they lose some of the electrical potential energy to the thin wires in the charger in the form of heat and electricity.

Therefore across the circuit there is an electrical energy difference.
The electrons entering the motor have a higher amount of electric potential energy than the electrons leaving the motor.

This difference in electrical potential energy across the charger is called a Potential Differences.