If there would be no electricity

The other day I have asked 13-years-old kids a question: “What would change if suddenly there would be no electricity?”

You will probably start from the collapse of infrastructure: no internet, no light, cars cannot start, air planes fall down, factories stop working, chaos, famine, war, we move to candles and steam engines.

However, look deeper. What do we use to think? Brain and neurons. How do we transmit nervous signals to our fingertips? Electricity! No electricity — no feelings, no thoughts… We would become a seaweed. Actually, the heart beats because of a nervous system. We would become a dead seaweed.

Deeper. Why the atoms are connected into molecules? Electrical (electromagnetic) forces. Molecules fall apart. Atoms are made of protons, neutrons and electrons, with electrons flying around a nucleus because of a electromagnetic force. Electrons will fly away from atoms. Everything will become a plasma. We would become a dead seaweed fog of electrons and ions.

Actually, the floor and the ground below would do the same, it would split into subatomic particles and will not stop any other objects from falling through it. The gravity of the Earth will draw all those particles into its centre. The electromagnetic forces will not stop electrons from falling into protons and they would turn into neutrons, our Earth becoming a neutron star. The sun will still continue to be thermonuclearly powered, although will probably burn much faster with some drastic changes.

By the way, since there is no electromagnetic field, there are no waves of electromagnetic field, therefore no radio-waves and no light. If you would be able to have an electromagnetic space-suit and fly through this world, you would see only darkness, with some sparkles of elementary particles flying from various nuclear reaction through your retina…