Stupid question

I'm not sure, but I think electrics need electric strings for the pickups. My guess is that the magnets can't pick up the bronze and the core wouldn't have enough mass to pick up. I have seen video of Lightnin Hopkins playing an acoustic with a strat style pickup on some kind of metal brace across the soundhole. One of the comments said something about using electric strings with that style of pick up. I also wonder about the string tension. Is it just the way it feels or does an acoustic have more string tension than an electric.

I'm a believer in putting the fattest, gnarliest,  thickest, rudest strings you can find on guitars.  It sucks for a bit, but they sound great.

Anyway, pickups are driven by basic physics.   If you run a conductor (your guitar string) through a magnetic field (your pup), you induce electric current (into your amplifier.)   So long as the string is made of a material that can effect a magnetic field, it will drive your pickups.

My Gibson ES330 electric guitar has to have a wound third string. Most lighter guage strings we buy in sets have a plain third string that rings out louder that the other strings on my guitar and drives me nuts.
I went to a small local music store and asked for a single 18 wound steel string. He had none or any sets with a wound third, so he took a wound copper third string out of a acoustic string set and charged me for two sets of strings.
The copper string sounded lousy on my Gibson - really dead. I drove 80 miles to Guitar center and bought a pack of 6, 18 wound strings. Now I can buy any set of electric strings and substitute an 18 wound for the plain third.

Now I'm confused?? One says one thingy and another says another thingy. I gotta' invent an acoustic-electrical/electrical-acousticly guitar

Most electric guitars...say a Strat or Les Paul type...will have magnetic pickups that need strings that have good magnetic properties. That's why most of the strings designed for electric are steel core with a wrapping of Steel, Nickle, Chrome or other metal that responds well to magnets. Some of those might then have a corrosion resistant coating to make them last longer. ie: Elixars, etc. Acoustic/Electric guitars typically have a Piezo electric pickup that responds to vibrations in the guitar wood or a microphonic type unit built inside.
Acoustic strings often are steel core wrapped with bronze, phosphor, silk or a combination of phospor/bronze to give a distinct sound. Course there are always exceptions and such, but generally speaking...nylon strings for a classical guitar ain't gonna work on a Strat since they don't have magnetic properties, but Electric strings can work on a Classical guitar with a microphonic or piezo pickup...   hope this makes sense...jg

I'm using electric 10's on my Ovation acoustic 'cos I wanted a more CSNY type sound out of it. Works fine.