Electricity

Let's say you want to reinvent electricity.   The majority of the today’s electricity is generated by moving conductors through a magnetic field.  So you need a magnetic field, a conductor and motion.  A water wheel could provide motion, so then you just need the conductor (wire) and some magnets and you could generate electricity.   This sounds great on paper but in reality it glosses over an interesting Catch-22 in using permanent magnets to generate electricity.

The academically anemic infographic under discussion. Click for a larger image.

I've seen this infographic (at right) posted several times on the internet. My inner engineer couldn't help but to tinker with it and give it that little something extra[0].  I'll dial it up to '11' by making it useful without writing a dissertation on each subject. Here goes...