In our electron pump, when you turn the crank, one side gets a surplus of electrons, or a negative charge, and on the other side the atoms are missing said electrons, resulting in a positive charge.
The part in a bold font is confusing to me. I can't make grammatical sense of it. One side gets a surplus of electrons and the other side gets the atoms. How does are missing said electrons fit into the rest of the sentence?
Answer
In our electron pump, when you turn the crank, one side gets a surplus of electrons, or a negative charge, and on the other side the atoms are missing said electrons, resulting in a positive charge.
Said here means which are mentioned earlier in the text, or, simply, these. The sentence could be rephrased thus:
In our electron pump, when you turn the crank, one side gets a surplus of electrons, or a negative charge, and on the other side the atoms are missing these electrons, resulting in a positive charge.
So, as an atom misses an electron (the electron's orbital is empty), it assumes positive charge.
No comments:
Post a Comment