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The simplest electric circuit is a light bulb and a battery.
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The battery creates a force pushing the charged particles in the wire,
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causing them to flow in a loop around the circuit.
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The number of charged particles that pass by each second
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is what we refer to as the current.
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The charged particles flow through the light bulb because the battery causes them
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to have a higher potential energy on one side of the light bulb than the other.
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This is similar to how objects at higher elevations
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have a higher gravitational potential energy.
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This potential energy is what we refer to as voltage.
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If we visualize the potential energy as boxes that are attached to
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the charged particles, then we will see that
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this energy is converted into light as the particles pass through the bulb.
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The charged particles regain their potential energy
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as they move through the battery, which pushes
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the charged particles to the higher potential.
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When the energy inside the battery is depleted,
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the battery will no longer be able to create
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this potential energy which we call voltage.
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A battery that has not yet been depleted ensures that
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the voltage between its two terminals is always at a specific value.
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If we place several batteries with the same voltage together in parallel,
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then this will result in more energy that is stored,
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and this will give us more time before the battery is depleted.
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If we instead place these batteries in series,
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this will cause their voltages to add,
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resulting in a much higher potential energy for each charged particle.
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A higher voltage across the light bulb means
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that a higher current will pass through it.
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This will cause far more light to be emitted by the light bulb, but
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it will also mean that the energy in the batteries will be depleted much faster.
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Much more detailed information about
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voltage, current, and electric circuits is
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available in the other videos on this channel.