I’ve heard the definitions of it being “energy transferred per charge”, “potential difference”, and “the difference between the electrons in the positive and negative terminals of a battery” but I still don’t really understand some of these definitions, and can’t really wrap my head around what exactly is it.
I also don’t really get how it is the thing that can “power up” a circuit (I might have misunderstood this part” and how the definitions above can be the same thing
In: Physics
If you move a conductor through a magnetic field, you can force the electrons out of their normal atomic orbits so that one end of the conductor has an excess of electrons (and therefore a negative charge) while the other end has a dearth of electrons, and is therefore positively charged. The same thing occurs chemically in a battery.
Likes repel, opposites attract. The negative charges are trying to get away from each other and the positive charges are trying to pull them back. So there is a “charge” difference between them. Provide a path for them to rejoin, and you have current flow (amps).
You can really get hung up with monikers like electromotive force, potential, voltage, etc., as well as electron flow vs hole flow vs “they’re not really orbits, they just kinda vibrate”.
If you’re going to be designing MOSFETs and such, that may all matter, but for an ELI5 visualization, don’t worry about it. At this point all that is much more confusing than enlightening.
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