Electric Current

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Section 10.5 Electric Current

Exercises Warm-up Activity

1.

Within a circuit, there are tiny positive charges that are free to move¹. What do you think is happening to all of those tiny positive charges in a simple circuit with a battery and a light bulb?

The voltages across different elements of a circuit produce electric fields within the elements that help move the charges along, producing a current.

Definition 10.5.1. Electric Current.

Electric Current is the flow of electric charge and has units of Amps ($\mathrm{C}/\mathrm{s}$). It is defined as the rate of positive charge flowing past a given point in a circuit per unit time:

\begin{equation*} I = \frac{dq}{dt} \end{equation*}

Exercises Activities

1.

Recall the circuit (Figure 10.2.1) from Section 10.2. Do you think that the current passing through element B is greater than, less than, or equal to the current passing through element A? Explain your answer.

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