Is electric current a form of voltage?

No, electric current is the rate at which electrons flow in a conductor.

The voltage is what makes the electrons move. They have different units of measurement

It's a bit confusing and a bit of a cheat really

Electrons are measured in units called Coulombs. And one coulomb is the number of electrons passing when a current of one ampere (amp) is said to be flowing for one second. One coulomb is a lot of electrons about six million million million of them in fact. If a current of one ampere) is flowing for one second. all these guys will be passing by.

We like to think they are moving at the speed of light as when we flick the switch hey presto we can see the light.

However the electron in the Coulomb gang are a bit like Mario and they are all over the place and really each electron only move about a quarter of a millimeter in that same second.

So how come we see the light go on straight away? Well that the cheat. Electrons in a wire are packed in so if we add on in at one end we push one out at the other.
so for the Coulomb gangs if one gang is moving (because of the voltage - which we haven't come to yet) one gang is moving out.

Now if the current is an alternating current - because it's been made to behave that way because of an alternating voltage was made at the power station - our coulomb gangs are not moving very far at all. In fact in England the current coming into our houses is alternating backwards and forwards at about 50 cycles/second. So in that second the Coulomb gang - all six million million million of them making up our current of one amp go backwards and forwards about a quarter of a millimetre 50 times/second.

Getting back to your voltage.

Voltage is also known as potential difference or an old name is electron moving force and this is the condition we create at the power station or in a battery or through static electricity by creating a positive and negative choice for our electrons.

There are two common important relationships between voltage and current.

Power measured in watts = volts x amps

Resistance measured in ohms = volts/amps.

I could go on forever but remember you can't really have current without volts and you can't really have volts without current. The way they relate to each other depends on where we are and what we are doing.

Hope this helps

Alex Houghton - ancient science teacher Chorley England.