# Tag Info

19

The identity $$V = K \frac{dV}{dt}$$ is only guaranteed with a constant $K$ if your assumptions actually hold. The first identity $V=RI$ only holds for a resistor, while the other holds for a capacitor. So in this sense, the letters $V,I$ in these equations mean something else. In one of them, it's the current through (or voltage on) a particular resistor, ...

15

The physical 'meaning' of the imaginary part of the impedance is that it represents the energy storage part of the circuit element. To see this, let the sinusoidal current $i = I\cos(\omega t)$ be the current through a series RL circuit. The voltage across the combination is $$v = Ri + L\frac{di}{dt} = RI\cos(\omega t) - \omega LI\sin(\omega t)$$ The ...

14

For static charges, the relationship is V (voltage) = Q (charge) / C (capacitance). Capacitance is a function of the shape, size and distance between objects, which are all continuous values. (Well, I suppose you could argue that shape and size are quantized to the atomic spacing of the object's material, but you can't say the same thing for distance.) So ...

12

$\def\vE{{\vec{E}}}$ $\def\vD{{\vec{D}}}$ $\def\vB{{\vec{B}}}$ $\def\vJ{{\vec{J}}}$ $\def\vr{{\vec{r}}}$ $\def\vA{{\vec{A}}}$ $\def\vH{{\vec{H}}}$ $\def\ddt{\frac{d}{dt}}$ $\def\rot{\operatorname{rot}}$ $\def\div{\operatorname{div}}$ $\def\grad{\operatorname{grad}}$ $\def\rmC{{\mathrm{C}}}$ $\def\rmM{{\mathrm{M}}}$ $\def\ph{{\varphi}}$ ...

11

If you express power loss in a power line as $V^2/R$, the $V$ in that expression is the voltage difference between the two ends of the power line, not the voltage difference between the power line and ground. To supply a fixed amount of power $P_L$ to a load, if the voltage at the load $V_L$ is larger, the current $I=P_L/V_L$ can be smaller. If the power ...

9

The resistance of water, even with ions and minerals and such, is still fairly high. So, a tiny current flowed through the water, but not very much. Additionally, the heating effect that often destroys them when short circuited would also be nullified by the cooling water.

8

If you have just given the voltage signal with $$\def\l{\left}\def\r{\right} v(t) = \l(2-\l|\frac t{\rm s}-2\r|\r)\rm V$$ then the current at $t=2\rm s$ is undefined. Right. But, in most cases really nobody cares. What we learn theoretically about the current from the above voltage signal definition is that $$i(t) = \begin{cases} C\cdot 1\frac{\rm V}{\rm ... 7 Voltage is a continuous function. If you are a certain distance from a (point) charge q, the potential is$$V=\frac{q}{4\pi\epsilon_0 r}$$By adjusting the value of r to anything you want (not quantized), you can get any potential you want. And so yes, when you do any analog-to-digital conversion, you will "destroy" a certain amount of information. ... 7 This is true but strictly limited to RC circuits without external sources: that is, a resistor hooked up to a capacitor with nothing else in between. In that case, V is indeed proportional to \dot V, with a crucial minus sign in between:$$ \dot V=-\frac1\tau V, $$where \tau>0 is some constant. This equation implies that V(t)=V(0)e^{-t/\tau}, ... 6 Generally, no. You've written two equations. The first relates voltage and current for an isolated resistor. The second relates voltage and current for an isolated capacitor. Given only those two expressions, there's no reason at all that they can or should be combined. That is, you have no circuit, only isolated components. There are principles for ... 6 You are absolutely correct, the electric field does fall off with distance from the battery. However, this is only true during the transient state (the state of the field when the battery is first connected). In fact not only are the magnitudes inconsistent, but so is the direction of the field. The field doesn't always point in the direction of the wire. ... 6 There is a physical meaning behind the imaginary component of the impedance. You can re-cast the complex impedance Z = R + jX (using engineering's notation j for the imaginary unit) in polar form to get Z = |Z|\exp(j\phi). |Z| is the magnitude of the impedance, and scales the amplitude of the current to get the amptlitude of the voltage. \phi = ... 6 There does not need to be an magnetic field in the inductor for there to be "back emf" (I would prefer "induced emf"). The induced emf is the consequence of a changing magnetic field and not of a magnetic field itself and hence there can be a changing magnetic field even at zero magnetic field (something like a positive acceleration downwards for a ball ... 6 Basically motors without rotation act as a simple Resistor between the power source, so it is always a closed circuit and current flows. In motors, when forced not to rotate, this is called stalling. Only some special motors can sustain long periods of stalling, called Torque Motors, and are used to apply a force while speed is zero or very near zero. ... 5 The electric field assigns a single vector quantity to each point in space (specifically, the direction in which a positive test charge would accelerate if it popped into existence at that point, assuming it didn't perturb the setup creating the field in the first place). I believe that the difficulty of this question arises from an ambiguity in the problem ... 5 Voltage is similar to height. It plays the same role for electric charge as height*gravity does for a ball on a hill. So high voltage means high potential energy the same way a ball being high up on a hill means high potential energy. Voltage is not potential energy, the same way height is not energy. However, if you have a certain amount of charge q, you ... 5 Kirchhoff's loop rule is also called Kirchhoff's voltage law (KVL). Which is different from Kirchhoff's current rule which is also called Kirchhoff's current law (KCL). KVL is derived from Maxwell–Faraday equation for static magnetic field (i.e. the derivative of B with respect to time is zero). KCL is derived from charge continuity equation which is ... 5 Inductors resist changes in current. So in a circuit like the one you describe, for short times after the switch is closed, the inductor acts like a broken wire. This is consistent with the statement you made that there is 2 V across the inductor. For these short times the circuit is essentially reduced (i.e. literally just cut the inductor out of the ... 5 Voltage doesn't come directly from the charge of the electron. It's the energy per charge. The charge carriers may be discrete, but the energy is not. We can easily generate a potential by moving a wire through a magnetic field. The potential is proportional to the speed of the wire, which is a continuous value.$$V = vBL\sin{\theta}

5

How can I prove Thevenin's and Norton's theorem? Here's an outline - you can fill in the dots. Measure the voltage (with an ideal voltmeter) between any two nodes of an arbitrary linear circuit. Call this voltage the open circuit voltage $V_{OC}$ since there is zero current through an ideal voltmeter. Then, place an ideal ammeter across the same two ...

5

A transistor is not simply a combination of diodes. A bipolar junction transistor is a complex device consisting of three layers of differently doped semiconductor. If a current is pumped through the base-emitter juction, there will be several times greater collector-emitter current because of the increased amount of minority carriers in the base region. ...

5

In the limit of long times, the currents are steady, so the magnetic fields they create are steady so there is no induced EMF. This situation is usually tagged "steady state". That said, there will be a period of time when you have just switched a circuit on or off during which things have not settled down and then there will in general be effects not seen ...

5

Does that mean when I apply a voltage, the current will be infinite large? No, not even in the context of ideal circuit theory. It's a bit subtle since we're using phasor voltages and currents and that requires a couple of assumptions to hold in order to be valid. When those assumptions don't hold, we have to see what the 'infinity' (division by ...

5

When the switch is opened, the circuit is the equivalent of this, so I think you can clearly see that the resistors are in series and so are the capacitors. It seems that you already understand how to calculate series resistance, so I'll show how to understand series capacitance. First, you probably already know that capacitance is defined as the ratio ...

5

The instantaneous power expended in a resistor is proportional to $V^2$ (i.e. independent of its direction), so the average power expended is given by the mean square voltage! The square of the average absolute voltage will not yield the power expended in the resistor. Edit: And actually this close-to-duplicate question does have more extensive answers ...

4

know that the two conversion coefficients are close but I simply cannot see why the RMS value is the one that conforms to reality. It's true that we can ask for the average of the magnitude of a sinusoid over time and calculate it. This is a useful quantity if, for example, we want the time average voltage at the output of a full wave rectifier ...

4

The answer is simple, the resistor doesn't know what voltage drop to provide, and to some extent it doesn't "care" either (unless it's so high that the current fries it but that's another issue). The "voltage drop" is only governed by the potential difference created by the generator (battery or other). If the circuit is open, the electrons have no path so ...

4

… an ideal power source capable of providing infinite current with no drop in the voltage it supplies. … Let's ignore the effects of current density on superconductors for now. … In these phrases is the explanation for the contradictory possibilities you have computed: you have supposed an impossible circuit. As a mathematical model, the behavior of ...

4

It's not a fundamental feature of electrical potential, but: If you have a polycrystalline metal and you cut and polish a smooth surface, the differently-oriented regions will present a different lattice plane to the outside. Crystals cut along different planes may have slightly different work functions, and so the electric potential very close to such a ...

4

Thare is only one node connecting elements B, D, E, and G. The dots on the diagram are just to indicate that the lines do in fact connect, so that all of the wires are part of the same node. In this kind of schematic diagram wires are considered as ideal, and all points on the wire are considered to be at an equal potential.

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