Today's topic is over electrical circuits. Circuits are in almost everything we use, batteries, appliances, toys, electronics, and houses. There had been no knowledge of electric currents before 1800's, but thanks to Allesandro Volta, we have a modern supply of electric currents.

Batteries are power sources to everything electrical. On these pages batteries will be explained how they are read, used and how circuits are related to them.

There are many different sizes of batteries ranging from 1.5 volts to 12 volts. Now volts is short for voltage, which is the electric potential difference between two terminals of a battery. We are able to measure currents in volts.

In addition to batteries and volts, currents are also included. Currents and volts are important physical qualities for understanding electric currents. The current measures the flow of the charge through a wire, and voltage measures the change in electrical potential energy per unit of charge.

Circuits

Circuits are very similar to the flow of a water pipe. For example, the battery would represent the pump, and the voltage would be the change in gravitational potential energy. Likewise, water flowing through a pipe due to pumping is similar to the flow of electric currents. Hopefully this will help you remember how electric currents flow!

In circuits, there are two ways energy can flow through batteries and wires:

1) a series connection: the batteries are connected one after another

2) a parallel connection: the currents split and are able to connect together again.

Circuits