Electric current Electric current An electric current is a flow of electric charge. In electric circuits this charge is often carried by moving electrons in a wire. It can also be carried by ions in an electrolyte, or by both ions and electrons such as in an ionised gas (plasma). The SI unit for measuring an electric current is the ampere, which is the flow of electric charge across a surface at the rate of one coulomb per second. Electric current is measured using a device called an ammeter. Electric currents cause Joule heating, which creates light in incandescent light bulbs. They
Current density law (one of Maxwell's equations), which relates current density to magnetic field. In special relativity theory, charge and current are combined into a 4-vector. Charge carriers which are free to move constitute a free current density, which are given by expressions such as those in this section. Electric current is a coarse, average quantity that tells what is happening in an entire wire. At position r at time "t", the "distribution" of charge flowing is described by the current density: where J(r, "t") is the current density vector, v(r, "t") is the particles' average drift velocity (SI unit: m∙s), and