How does electricity flow within electric circuits?

Answer 1

electrical charges flow in a series circuit buy a power source and a load

Answer 2

Current will always flow from high potential to low potential in a circuit. For example, if node A is 12V and node B is 6V, then the current will flow from node A to node B. Also, KCL (Kirchhoff's Current Law) states that the sum of the currents entering a node must be equal to the sum of the currents leaving the node. So, if you have 12mA going into the node, then you also have 12mA leaving the node.

Answer 3

Ans:

When you use the term positive potential that relates to more positive charge; when you say negative potential, that relates to more negative charge. Potential is the amount of potential energy per unit charge in a field at a specific point. Potential energy is the amount of energy overall for a charge in a field. Energy cant itself be plus or minus, as its a scaler, but because potential equals energy / charge, and charge can be plus or minus, so can potential.

If you draw a round circle and put a plus in the middle, you can say that's a positive charge, and draw arrows away from it going outwards radially. The arrows relate to the direction a positive charge would be pushed if it were in the field created by the positive charge. If you do the same for a negative charge the lines arrows go towards the charge. This again show that electrons will move to a more positive potential, since they will move in the opposite direction of these arrows.

Now, with gravity for example, you don't have all this negative and positive business, because we're just talking about energy, and gravity isn't based on charge, and is always attractive force. In that case, where you wanted to state something moved from a greater potential to a lower potential you could say "from a higher to a lower potential", or "from a greater to a less great potential" indicating that the object has lost potential energy, but as soon as you say positive or negative potential, you're talking about electrical potential, and then it means something very different.

I think you just meant the electron would move from a high electrical potential to a lower electrical potential energy? In that case, yes they would. But in doing that, they will be moving from a less positive to a more positive potential too. What I think you meant was that there would be a negative change in the potential energy of the electrons? This would mean they would lose potential energy.

Answer:

Why would an electron flow from a "positive to a less positive potential"? Its a negative charge is it not? does a negative charge flow away from a positive potential to a less positive potential?

What you are saying is that an electron is repelled away from the positive terminal of a battery to the negative terminal? This would mean electrons are positive?

Hence "The direction of electron flow

is from a point of negative potential

to a point of positive potential. "

i.e. from a less positive potential to a more

positive potential right? Which is the reverse of your statement? Because since positive and negative are opposites, negative is less positive than positive.

please have a look at:

http://www.tpub.com/content/doe/h1011v1/css/h1011v1_35.htm

On the subject of holes: They are a free space for another electron to take. Its like asking all the school children in an exam to move one chair forward, and the hole is the empty chair until another kid takes his place. They are particularly important in semiconductor physics.

Answer:

if you speak to a technician who works in the industry, they might tell you it flows from positive to negative, because this is conventional current, and is a convention left from the days when electricity was first discovered.

The reality is that negative electrons actually move in the wire away from the negative terminal and towards the positive terminal, because of the laws governing electric fields (like charges repel and unlike charges attract).

The battery produces an EMF (electro-motive-force) that pushes the electrons around the circuit as mentioned.

ANSWER: It commonly accepted that electrons flow from a positive potential to a less positive potential. The holes are flowing in the opposite direction since there is a lack of electrons due to electrons leaving the orbit.

ANSWER: I GUESS PEOPLE DON'T SEEM TO FIND THE POSSIBILITY OF ELECTRONS FLOW FROM A -1099 VOLTS TO -99 VOLTS AS PLAUSIBLE

I cant agree completely with above answer, because only a positive charge, when placed in the presence of a field producing positive charge will experience a field away from the positive charge: i.e. it will experience a force proportional to the rate of change of the field potential per unit distance in direction perpendicular to equal-potentials of the field producing positive charge thus: "flow from a positive potential to a less positive potential." Therefore, an electron, which for simplicity we call a negative point charge, will move towards a more positive potential, and not away. -dv/dx = f/q.

Remember like charges repel, and an electron will move away from a negative charge, and towards a positive charge. The field lines represent the path taken by a positive charge in that field, and around a positive charge, they point away from the charge radially. Te electron will move in the opposite direction of these field lines.

In physics it is best to think of the current flow in a metallic conductor as being the overall flow of negative charge, since it is the only moving charge that actually is moving and carries energy. It is also the only charge that can contribute to any magnetic field effects. this movement is known as drift velocity, and it is very slow compared to the random motion of electrons that occurs, whose random motion yields no overall displacement over a set time period, and therefore result in no positive contribution to the power in an electric circuit.

Answer 4

depends whether AC (alternating current/house current) or DC (direct current/i.e. battery powered)

electrons flow thru the wires.

in DC circuit they all go the same direction.

in AC they alternate...

Answer 5

The current branches, so that part will go through one branch of the parallel circuit, and part through the other branch. (It is also possible to have more than 2 branches.) Then it joins again.

Answer 6

This is called direct current, in which the electrons only flow in one direction.

Answer 7

In an AC circuit it flows both directions, in a DC circuit see website below.

http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/2000-02/949953455.Ph.r.html

Answer 8

when the switch is closed and load is connected