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What is the difference between potential difference and electromotive force?
Wiki User
∙ 12y ago
They are very similar, but there is one key difference.
Both represent the change in energy (per unit charge) that a charged particle would experience if moving between two points.
The difference is that a potential difference usually refers to a static situation. In this case, if a charged particle moved from Point A and returned to Point A, the change in potential would be zero.
An EMF usually refers to a dynamic situation within a circuit -- ie, a looping conductor. In this case, a charge that went around such a circuit and ended up at its beginning point, would actually experience a change in energy.
Wiki User
∙ 12y ago
Wiki User
∙ 12y agoPotential difference needs charge carriers, where as emf does not.
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What is the difference between electrical potential and electromotive force?
electric potential is potential difference between two points in closed circuit. but electromotive force is potential difference in any open circuit.
Why the unit of potential difference and electromotive force is the same?
Because an electromotive force is a potential difference (voltage) -specifically, an electromotive force is the open-circuit or no-load potential difference of a source such as a battery or generator.
What cause an electric current to move through a wire?
An electromotive force or potential difference between its ends.
What is a voltage?
an electromotive force or potential difference expressed in volts.
What are other names for voltage?
-- potential difference -- electromotive force
What causes the flow of electric current?
Electromotive force (potential difference, voltage) between two points of a conductor.
Difference between voltage and emf?
'Voltage' is simply another term for 'potential difference', and an electromotive force is the open-circuit, or no-load, potential difference of a source such as a battery or generator.
Which phenomenon generates electric current?
A potential difference (electromotive force) does.
Which is more common in practical cases electric potential or potential difference?
EMF (electromotive force) is more useful, in fact vital, for any electrical or electronic circuit. At school level your teacher would not make a distinction (and probably doesn't know the difference, or even realise there is one) between electromotive force and potential difference. In answer to a school question, it's potential difference.
Why potential difference and electromotive force have same unit?
Because they're the same thing.
Another word for voltage?
electromotive force (abbreviation: EMF or emf)
What is the difference between EMF and terminal PD?
An electromotive force is the potential differenceappearing across the terminals of a battery, generator, etc., when that device is not supplying any load. When the device is supplying a load current, the electromotive force is equal to the sum of the voltage drops around the complete circuit, including any internal voltage drop.A potential difference (also known as a 'voltage'), as the name implies, is the difference in potential between two points.
