That ' s all there is to it. Get yourself a tool belt , a bad attitude and a wiggy, and you can be an electrician. Mumble things about potential differentials or power factor and you can pass as an electrical engineer. An electric motor is a machine to get useful work from electricity. It is also two magnets chasing each other, with one magnet tied to a rotating shaft, while the power company changes their polarity just when the north and south poles start to line up.
Some people think motors run on smoke because when the smoke gets out, they stop working.
This is not true. There is a practical problem with the magnets in that if they happen to line up north to south on startup, they will stay that way. The reasons for this are too boring to go into and involve things like induced rotor currents and slip. Read on for the exciting conclusion. Some can run on both.