Recently, we’ve been studying electricity at school and one thing I’m incredibly confused about is voltage. When I try to find explanations, I find people using analogies to give a basic idea but actually not explain what it is?
So far, I believe that Voltage acts like a pushing force force the current to flow. Is this correct? or Is there anything I’m missing.
In: Physics
Like charge repel, opposite charge attract. If you put a small charge, called test charge, in an environment with other charges, it will experience force. Let’s say you make all the charges have a fixed position and only let the test charge move, and try to move test charge from point A to point B, you will have to oppose against this force, and this cause you to expend energy, ie. do work. This amount of work is increase with the amount of charge of the test charge. The rate of change between work done over charge at 0 charge is called the potential difference between point A and point B, also known as the voltage.
This electric “potential difference” is exactly the electric analog of gravity potential difference. In gravity, potential difference is the also the rate of change of work done to move an object against gravity, over the mass of the object, at 0; and gravitational potential is just potential difference compared to a fixed reference point, like the ground.
(ignore magnetic force in this discussion)
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