Voltage, electrical potential difference, electric tension or electric pressure (denoted V and measured in units of electric potential: volts,

or joules per coulomb) is the electric potential difference between two points, or the difference in electric potential energy of a unit chargetransported between two points.[1] Voltage is equal to the work done per unit charge against a static electric field to move the charge between two points. A voltage may represent either a source of energy (electromotive force), or lost, used, or stored energy (potential drop). A voltmetercan be used to measure the voltage (or potential difference) between two points in a system; usually a common reference potential such as theground of the system is used as one of the points. Voltage can be caused by static electric fields, by electric current through a magnetic field, by time-varying magnetic fields, or some combination of these three. Given two points in the space, called A and B, voltage is the difference of electric potentials between those two points. From the definition of electric potential it follows that:

Voltage is electric potential energy per unit charge, measured in joules per coulomb ( = volts). It is often referred to as "electric potential", which then must be distinguished from electric potential energy by noting that the "potential" is a "per-unit-charge" quantity. Like mechanical potential energy, the zero of potential can be chosen at any point, so the difference in voltage is the quantity which is physically meaningful. The difference in voltage measured when moving from point A to point B is equal to the work which would have to be done, per unit charge, against the electric field to move the charge from A to B. The voltage between the two ends of a path is the total energy required to move a small electric charge along that path, divided by the magnitude of the charge. Mathematically this is expressed as the line integral of the electric field and the time rate of change of magnetic field along that path. In the general case, both a static (unchanging) electric field and a dynamic (time-varying) electromagnetic field must be included in determining the voltage between two points.