Terms to Know When Dealing With Circuits

We’re going to take a look at three different terms you’re going to come across when discussing circuits. The first is electric potential, which is an expression of potential energy per unit of charge. We basically have two types of energy, potential and kinetic. Potential energy is stored up energy and kinetic energy is energy in motion.

This is electric potential—it’s electric energy that is stored up that can be used. Now electric potential—or what we could also call electrostatic potential, or voltage—is measured in volts, as a scale or quantity. The formula is V equals E over Q. V, of course, stands for voltage, E stands for the electrical potential energy, and Q stands for the charge.

Next, we have voltage which is electric potential difference between two points in a circuit (so it’s the electric potential difference between two points in a circuit). Now voltage can also be thought of as a measure of the rate at which energy is drawn from a source in order to produce a flow of electric charge.

The rate of flow of electric charge is expressed using the AMP, and it can be measured using an AMP meter. One amp is equal to one coulomb, or what we could abbreviate as capital C. It’s equal to one coulomb of charge passing through a given area in a second (so one coulomb of charge passing through a given area in a second).

Then we have electric charge, which typically only moves from areas of high electric potential to areas of low electric potential (so we have electric charge which moves from high electric potential to low electric potential). Now, to get charges to flow into a high potential area you must connect it to an area of higher potential by introducing a battery or other voltage source.

Say you have an area of low electric charge, and then over here you have another area, this has high electric charge. Naturally, electric charge is going to want to move from this area of high electric potential to this area of low electric potential.

Now if you want to get this electric charge to move in this direction, that’s when you’re going to have to introduce a battery or other voltage source. That’s the only way you’re going to be able to get this low electric potential—or, only way you’re going to be able to move this electric charge from this area of low electric potential to this area of high electric potential. That’s a brief look at electric potential, voltage, and electric charge.