Name and History
– The coulomb is named after Charles-Augustin de Coulomb.
– The symbol for the coulomb is ‘C’.
– The British Association for the Advancement of Science defined the volt, ohm, and farad before the coulomb.
– The International Electrical Congress approved the volt, ampere, and coulomb as units of measurement for electromotive force, electric current, and electric charge.
– The international coulomb based on laboratory specifications was introduced in 1908 and became the modern coulomb.
Definition
– The coulomb is defined in terms of the ampere and second: 1C = 1A × 1s.
– The ampere is defined by the fixed numerical value of the elementary charge.
– The 2019 redefinition of the ampere fixed the numerical value of the coulomb.
– One coulomb is approximately equal to 6241509074460762607.776 elementary charges.
– The exact value of 1 coulomb is 1.602176634 × 0.776.
SI Prefixes
– The coulomb can be modified by adding a prefix that multiplies it by a power of 10.
– Common multiples include milliCoulomb (mC), microCoulomb (µC), nanoCoulomb (nC), and picoCoulomb (pC).
– MegaCoulomb (MC) and gigaCoulomb (GC) are also used to represent larger amounts of charge.
– The prefixes kiloCoulomb (kC) and teraCoulomb (TC) are less commonly used.
– The use of SI prefixes allows for easier representation of charge in different contexts.
Conversions
– One faraday unit of charge is approximately equal to 9.648533212… × 10^4 coulombs.
– In terms of the Avogadro constant, one coulomb is approximately equal to 1.036 × 10^23 elementary charges.
– A capacitor of one farad can hold one coulomb at a drop of one volt.
– One ampere hour is equal to 3600 coulombs.
– One statcoulomb (statC) is approximately equal to 3.3356 × 10^-10 coulombs.
Everyday Terms
– Static electricity from rubbing materials together typically generates charges in the range of a few microcoulombs.
– The amount of charge in a lightning bolt is typically around 15 coulombs, but can be up to 350 coulombs for large bolts.
– A fully charged alkaline AA battery can hold about 5 kilocoulombs of charge.
– A typical smartphone battery can hold approximately 10,800 coulombs of charge.
– The coulomb is used to measure and describe charges in various everyday scenarios. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coulomb
The coulomb (symbol: C) is the unit of electric charge in the International System of Units (SI). It is equal to the electric charge delivered by a 1 ampere current in 1 second and is defined in terms of the elementary charge e, at about 6.241509×1018 e.
| Coulomb | |
|---|---|
 Charles-Augustin de Coulomb | |
| General information | |
| Unit system | SI |
| Unit of | electric charge |
| Symbol | C |
| Named after | Charles-Augustin de Coulomb |
| Conversions | |
| 1 C in ... | ... is equal to ... |
| SI base units | A⋅s |
| CGS units | ≘ 2997924580 statC |
| Atomic units | 6.241509×1018 e |
