hello and welcome to the engineering

circuit analysis tutor I'm very excited

to teach this course because I'm an

electrical engineer myself so I was

always very interested in electricity

and electric circuits and things like

that so what we're going to do in this

class is exactly what the title is we're

going to learn all about circuits we're

going to learn about electricity we're

going to learn about the components that

go into circuits but mostly what you do

in engineering courses is learn how to

analyze them given a circuit what is

going on where is the current going what

is the purpose of the circuit and so

there's a lot of details there in a lot

of techniques that have been developed

over the years to pull those things off

you know hundred years ago circuits and

and all of the things that we take for

granted today will be super theoretical

but they're all basically physics

they're taking energy out of a battery

or energy out of a wall and letting it

run around in a loop and doing some

useful work with it that work might be

spinning a motor right to spin a fan or

that work might be shooting a radio wave

out across the world to talk to somebody

else or that work might be to go into a

microprocessor and you know flip a bunch

of bits around and add a bunch of

numbers together basically create what

we call a computer but there's basically

infinite number of ways that you can

create circuits to do what we want them

to do but before you can understand a

microchip before you can understand an

amplifier before you can understand a

nuclear power plant you have to start at

the basics you have to start at the

really really simple questions the

things that are so fundamental and

that's what we're going to do in this

course we're going to start with

fundamentals and then we're going to go

on and talk about circuits and the

different kinds of circuits how to

analyze circuits figure out what's

happening in this inside these circuits

and you'll find there's a broad array of

tools that you learn in your classes to

help you with that

now I'll say right away the title of

this guy is engineering circuit analysis

but my goal is to really try to make it

as accessible as possible to anybody out

here who wants to learn it right don't

let the word engineering scare you too

much Engineering is a big word makes it

sound really hard but I'm going to try

to break things down so that everyone

can get it now I will say the good news

is and this is true with circuits in

general there really aren't that

any big-picture concepts to understand

we in this section we're going to talk

about voltage current and resistance

because they're so important but really

once you get past that there's a few

other big picture concepts and then you

understand really the basics they're

challenged with circuits comes is that I

can draw a circuit on the board and you

might know how to analyze it and figure

out what's going on and then I might

change one little line one little branch

of the circuit might completely change

how the thing operates right so there's

an infinite variety in how they can be

constructed that's what really requires

you to get a lot of practice and that's

what this course is going to be it's

centered around practice practice

practice practice and to be honest with

you you don't need to know much more

than algebra to do very very well in

this class yes we are going to use

complex numbers a little bit later on

later later in the course not and not in

the beginning we are going to use some

calculus and integration later later

later on in the course but by and large

you can do a ton of circuit analysis

with just some basic algebra and that's

the way I'm going to try to teach it to

you so that you know everybody it can be

accessible to everybody while also

catering to the engineering student

which is really the focus of the class

all right so I had I had to figure out

where to start I think the most

important thing for everyone watching

this to understand is the concepts of

voltage current and resistance because

those three things we're going to end up

zooming in on and talking about for the

next many many hours and you really have

to understand what they are a lot of

students if they haven't already had an

interest in circuits they get very

confused at what the difference between

voltage and current is and why does

resistance play into that so what we're

going to do in this particular section

is zoom in on that and I want you to

really make sure you internalize and

understand what they mean because as you

go and solve a circuit and I'm asking

you what the voltage is you need to kind

of have a internal picture of what what

that means even before you do any math

so there's no math in this section you

know this is all definitions I try to

make it as interesting as I can but it's

so incredibly important make sure you

understand this first things first I

think we all know this what is an

electric circuit what is a circuit I

mean a lot of people a lot of people

think that

the circuit is and those people probably

do but what is a circuit the simplest

one sentence definition is it's a closed

it's a closed loop that carries what

does it carry what do you think

electricity you know like I say I have

to start somewhere and start I start I

never never never assume that you know

anything about what I'm talking about so

a circuit you think about a circuit of a

racetrack or a circuit and the Indy 500

it has to go all the way around if you

don't have it going all the way back

round to the starting point then you

don't have a circuit and no electricity

can flow in such situation unless that

goes all the way back around to where

you start from so in order to have a

circuit it has to come back to where it

starts from so a simple example of that

without really getting any kind of

detail is you know here's a source I'm

going to put a plus minus two different

to denote it as a source this could be a

battery you know this could be a battery

that you pull out of you know you go buy

it at the store and we're not going to

put anything in the circuit with it

we're just going to draw these lines

here these lines or wires so it would be

just like you might think you get a

battery you hook a wire up that goes all

the way back around to the other side

this completes a circuit the electricity

can circle around and around and around

here coming from one terminal background

to the other one that means it's a

circuit super super important but you

know also very simple as well now let's

get to something that's not quite so

simple but you know a lot of people

still may understand this what is

current and when I say current I mean

electric you know learn how to spell

current first of all current electric

current what is electric current okay

the simplest definition to write down

for what electric current is it is the

flow of electrons in a circuit

it's the flow of electrons in a circuit

so everybody's heard of heard of current

electric current an analogy to electric

current would be current in a stream we

all know what a current is in a stream

right it's when the stream is moving

there's a current it's pushing your boat

right it's the movement of something

don't confuse that because a lot of

people get confused with voltage and

current if you're not really familiar

with these terms voltage has really

nothing to do with anything moving we'll

talk about what voltage is in a minute

the current the electric current think

of a stream think of something moving

that is what's moving so in real life if

you have a piece of wire which is metal

the electrons are really and truly

what's moving around in that wire so if

you wanted to kind of zoom in and draw a

little picture of that we could draw

another little circuit here little

simple one anyway like this goes up

connect it all the way back around to

the beginning so there's going to be

current circulating around and around

around but if I zoomed in let's say this

is a piece of wire right if i zoom in

this wire and get a microscope up on top

of it and zoom in on it really really

tight if I could see that what I would

see inside is a bunch of atoms right so

this atom is going to have a positive

nucleus and this atom is going to have a

negative electron orbiting around this

atom now in real life this might be you

know copper wire so it'll be lots of

protons in the nucleus and lots of

electrons but for the purpose of this

drawing just pretend that there's a

positive Center and there's a negative

things orbiting now here's another atom

here it's got a positive Center and it's

got a negative thing orbiting this one's

got a positive and a negative every atom

has this positive Center and negative

surroundings now in metals like copper

and gold and silver that conduct

electricity well these electrons they're

not really tightly held to the atom

they're there but they can be coerced so

to speak to move they can be you know

you can talk them into moving if you if

you try hard enough

the object that actually totten talks

them into moving is the battery right is

the better or the source coming from

your wall for instance and when that

happens when you hook a battery up to

this wire like this since these

electrons are not really really held on

terribly tightly

what happens is this electron you know

down here this electron is going to jump

literally it's going to jump over and

grab it and go into the orbit of the

next atom and at that moment the same

time that happens it's a chain reaction

this guy's goes to the next guy this

electron moves to this guy and this

electron moves to it's adjacent atom and

this process happens at almost at the

speed of light so you can't see this

electron movement but that's what's in

fact happening so it's a chain reaction

and they're almost like in lockstep

moving from one atom to the next and

this movement is really you know you can

think of it as energy of motion is the

energy that the circuit uses to do

whatever it's going to do you know turn

a fan turn a light bulb on whatever

that's where the energy from the battery

is going it's going into pushing these

electrons around which is electric

current so when I draw this here I'm

drawing these these negative electrons

moving so this is what we call electron

alright or electric current there's

another way to say that so the electrons

if you want to think of it this way will

go draw it down here this is the

negative terminal of the battery this is

where the negative charges are sort of

piled up so here this is called the

electric current so the electrons

literally bleed out of this negative

terminal they go all the way around and

they go back and they enter it back into

the positive terminal because this is

positive so it's going to attract the

negative electrons and this process goes

on on and on and on until the battery

basically dies out if it's a battery and

they can't supply any more electrons or

if it's a wall it just keeps going and

going forever and you get charged toward

right it comes from the power plant but

the electrons are really and truly

what's moving now let me blow your mind

a little bit here in a basic basic

circuits course like a hobby book like

you know go to Barnes & Noble or

somewhere just get a book on electricity

they'll talk about the electrons moving

but when you get an engineering and you

really start trying to analyze how a

circuit is going to really behave it's a

little bit cumbersome to talk about the

electrons moving even though that's

really what's happening and

life the reason that it's a little bit

cumbersome is because of really one

reason electrons have a negative charge

they have a negative charge and what

we're going to do later on is we're

going to have a circuit and we're going

to write equations simple algebra

equations so don't get too worried about

them but they're going to be equations

and they're going to describe how the

current is moving if we do that for a

bunch of negative electrons then we're

going to have negative signs running

around all of our equations for our

electric circuits and that would totally

work totally work however it's a little

cumbersome to have negative signs

running around all of our equations so

when real life from from this moment on

I'm just teaching you this to give you

background but from this moment on we're

not really going to talk about electron

current flow or electric current flow

we're not really going to be talking

about the direction that the electrons

are moving let me show you what we are

going to talk about in this very same

wire you may have to stare at this a

little while to realize this but I think

you should be able to convince yourself

that since this charge is jumping this

direction for a temporary moment like

it's we're talking about a chain

reaction right this one moves here then

this one moves here in this one moves

here but at the very moment that this

negative charge jumps away for a split

second this atom has lost an electron

right so it's an electrically neutral

atom it's zero charge altogether because

the electrons and the protons cancel out

they're the same number but as soon as I

lose one of these electrons they have

sort of a positive charge left over

right same thing happens here when I

lose this guy for a split moment I have

a positive charge here so as these

negative charges jump this direction

mathematically it's the same thing as

pretending that I have positive charges

jumping this direction the opposite

direction because this guy's lost an

electron and then the guy before it

loses one and before it so as these guys

move this way it's the same as saying

mathematically a positive charge goes

the other direction I hope that makes

sense to you qualitatively based on my

drawing here but if it doesn't all you

really have to remember is that the real

current that we talked about in

engineering

is called the hole current and it goes

in an opposite direction from the

electric current which is the real-life

thing that's happening and it's a

mathematical convenience because since

now instead of talking about negative

electrons moving this way we talk about

positive charges moving this way now we

have positive charges in all of our

equations and all of our equations are

have rid themselves of all these

negative signs or at least a lot of the

negative signs right and it makes it a

lot easier to deal with so it's really

saving you time if you think about it

that way saving you a thought process so

the real electrons are going this way

but we pretend that we have an equal and

opposite number of positive charges

going the same direction we call it a

hole current the reason it's called a

hole current is because for a split

second when this electron leaves it's

left like a hole behind on this atom

which is making it that guy positive so

the hole current actually comes out of

the positive terminal like this right

and we say we denote that current I and

electrical engineering or in engineering

and it's the hole current this is such

an important concept that you really

should not go on until you truly

internalize and make sure basically all

you need to remember in the big picture

is it anytime you have a circuit the

source is going to always have a

positive and a negative terminal oh it's

just like any battery if you pull a

battery out of the box you'll see one

sides labeled positive one sides labeled

negative in real life if you hook the

battery up to something electrons are

there really the objects that come

around from the negative terminal back

to the positive but in in electrical

error in any kind of an engineering

course when you're taking circuits class

you never ever ever talk about the

electron flow in this this direction

this way you always instead talk about

the positive current flow it's the same

value going in opposite directions and

it makes the equations much much simpler

and in fact all the power calculations

the the function of the circuit the

energy all everything is completely and

totally described by talking about this

sort of like this pretend current that's

going in the opposite way so just get

used to seeing that you're always going

to pretend that your currents come

the positive terminal even though in

reality the electrons are bleeding out

the other side now the units of electric

current I talked I told you briefly

current is denoted I right I it probably

is some history to it you can go look it

up you would think current would be

called C but it's not it's called I so

anytime you see I labeled in a circuit

that is the electric or that's the

current flowing through that branch of

the circuit or something of that nature

now what are the units of current a lot

of you have already heard this units

let's go and change colors a little bit

the units for current is the ampere

which is also called an amp right or you

can call it simply a right the higher

the number of amps the you know the

higher the current going through the

circuit basically an ampere is telling

you how many charges are moving through

your circuit per second and there's a

definition in physics that you could go

look up for that and that's fine it's

not terribly important because you know

really we're always talking in circuits

you know fit in a physics class you'd be

talking about an individual charge

moving there's so many coulombs on a

charge moving right but in a circuit

you've got billions of charges in this

in this guy so you don't talk about

coulombs and and how many coulombs of

charge are crossing through a boundary

you just look at the aggregate which is

how many amperes which is a Coulomb per

second how many coulombs per second

really are going through that guy so an

ampere represents how many coulombs of

charge are passing if you were to slice

this wire and watch how many go through

there that would be how many coulombs of

charge go through there per second but

really you don't have to deal with that

too much in a circuits class we're

always going to be talking about amps or

amperes so bringing it back to the

everyday language that everybody already

knows you've heard of amps right

everybody's heard of amps that is the

current flow the higher the number of

amps in that circuit is that the more it

can potentially kill you right doesn't

take much current to kill a person

actually believe it or not so you might

have a car stereo that has you know a 10

amp

amplifier right means ten amps of

current are flowing around that

amplifier because to push the sound into

those speakers and give them to move

really loud you need a lot of physical

electricity to do that right to actually

get it to move like that but in a

computer inside of a microchip you might

have a teeny tiny amount of current

going around because those are very

delicate circuits you might have a

milliamp or a micro amp inside of those

guys but the base unit of current is

always going to be the ampere which is

which is what we have right here all

right so to sum it up which is really so

important I keep talking about it

current in general in real life is the

flow of electrons however in all

circuits from henceforth that we're

going to talk about we're not even going

to talk about this we're just going to

say the current comes out of the

positive terminal and the unit is ampere

that's really the bottom line all right

now the next thing we have is the

concept of voltage which many many

people many people get confused with

current because it's kind of used

interchangeably voltage is the push when

I put in quotes the push that causes the

current to flow so in other words it's

the source right it's the source so when

you look at a 9-volt battery that

battery comes in a physical size and has

nine volts nine volts mean is a relative

indicator to tell you how much who for

lack of a better word that battery can

push in a circuit so the current and the

voltage are very very closely related

you cannot have any current flowing

without something pushing it and so you

have to have some source there to push

it which is usually a battery or a wall

socket or something like that and that's

always measured in volts so when you

when you see on TV you know oh boy you

could be killed by 10,000 volts well

10,000 volts is not really how much

current is flowing through you that's

just how much push there is so to kind

of bring it down to two layman's terms

think about a straw pretend this were a

soda straw that you get

restaurant right and let's say it's a

pretty narrow straw like a almost like a

straw that you use to stir your coffee

okay now if I blow on it like this then

I'm going to be pushing air through that

straw the current is the air that's

actually moving through the straw right

that's what the current is that's what's

actually doing the movement and doing

the work all right now I'm actually

blowing on it so I'm pushing I'm

actually increasing the pressure at the

end of that thing

that's causing the current to move

that's the voltage the push that I give

it the pressure that I give it is what's

actually causing the current to move or

the in this case the air to move through

the straw if I don't blow and I don't

give any pressure then there's no

current there's no flow of air through

the straw same thing in a circuit if the

voltage is zero you know coming out of

the source here then there's no current

so the two are very closely related it's

just that the voltage is the push and

the current is actually what's moving

that's really the main thing to take

away from this guy so it usually comes

from up where it always comes from a

battery or some kind of other source

that you might get that's generated out

of the wall now for the units of voltage

the units is the Volt or simply call it

V so that's just this that's the the

same thing as the current the more the

more volts you have the higher the

voltage you have the more potential to

move current through a circuit you have

so that's why 10,000 volts is so much

more dangerous than 1 volt it's not

because it's measuring how much current

is going through your body it's just

that if I grab onto a 10,000 volt fence

it has the potential to push a ton of

current through my body right whereas a

1 volt source since it's so much less of

a push so to speak it's not really going

to do very much to me all right so

that's really the main difference so

current voltage tied at the hip but two

different things the biggest faux pas

you can kind of get into is saying boy

that was a really impressive circuit

that had 39 thousand volts of

electricity flowing through your body

that sentence makes no sense voltage

does not flow through your body only

current does voltage is what actually

pushes the current through your body

that's really the main distinction

now tied to all of this is it the very

very important concept of resistance

all right resistance resistance is very

very simple to understand it opposes the

current flow in a circuit this might be

a little bit confusing at first but

think about our soda straw alright for a

second pretend for a second we didn't

have actually a soda straw let's say we

had something really big like a paper

towel tube like you have you get the

paper towels at the grocery store and

there's a giant cardboard tube in the

middle I stick that to my mouth and I

blow it's pretty easy to blow through a

paper towel tube because it's so big

right so I can blow all day as long as

my lungs can do it I can do lots and

lots and lots of air through there right

with really not much effort I don't

really have to push that hard to

actually make that air move because it's

just so big so we say that the

resistance for lack of a better word of

this guy to air flow is not very big

it's got a low resistance right now

let's compare and contrast that let's go

back to our coffee stirring straw very

very tiny diameter so for that one to

get any kind of air movement through it

I've got to blow pretty hard and I can

feel it in my lips I'm I'm really

blowing because we say that the

resistance of that smaller straw is much

higher the resistance to airflow is

higher because it's physically

constrained you cannot force that much

air through that straw very easily I

mean you can do it but you have to blow

really hard so we say the resistance is

much higher for that guy and actually

that analogy could directly translates

to two electric circuits as well if I

literally have a wire a you know a

copper wire as big around as my as I'm

demonstrating here let's big around it

has a very very very low resistance the

cross-section mean is so big that tons

of electrons can move through there tons

of electricity can move through there

without really much resistance because

it's so big but if I go get a wire

thinner than my hair or maybe I go get a

tiny wire edge

onto a computer circuit chip which are

so small that you have to have a

microscope to see them then the

cross-section of a teeny tiny wire like

that is going to be so small it's going

to actually resist the current the

electricity is going to get to move

through there but it's going to cause

friction there's just not as many atoms

there for it to move so the resistance

is going to be higher so if the smaller

the object the resistance is always

going to be higher the bigger the object

the resistance is going to be smaller so

think of it that way it's resisting and

it's opposing current flow not because

something intelligent is in charge of it

it's just because of the size of it

usually or the way it's constructed so

current voltage resistance they're also

intertwined because of the analogy with

the soda straw really the resistance

when the resistance is smaller like the

big paper towel tube right then I can

move a lot of air a lot of current

without much effort with a lower voltage

right and then when I go to a smaller

straw I can still move current but it's

going to take more effort more voltage

to get the same amount of current flow

or to get the same amount of current

flow through that resistance so current

voltage resistance are really all tied

at the hip really is as far as being

interrelated now the units of resistance

the unit's is called the ohm but you

never actually write home in a circuit

you always use this Omega this capital

Omega and so when you have a 5 ohm

resistor has more resistance than a 1

ohm resistor a resistor we'll talk about

in the next section but they actually

have a circuit component called a

resistor whose job is to resist current

flow seems weird why you would ever need

that we'll get to the reasons why you

would need that later but that little

guy is going to try to stop the current

to flow to assert up to a certain point

and so the higher the value the more

it's trying to resist the current flow

right just like the example that we were

given before so very very important

topics current is the flow of

electricity voltage is how much push you

are pushing to make this current flow

and you're always flowing through

something that something is always going

to have a resistance different sized

wire different resistors different

circuit components are going to manifest

themselves as different values of

however many ohms

now for all of these guys I've kind of

hinted here but I'll just spell it out

we can use the metric prefixes for all

of these guys right because these are

standard units we can use the metric

prefixes so for instance if you're

talking about amps which is current flow

it may not make sense to talk about amps

you might need to talk about milliamps

right milliamps just like a millimeter

that's one one thousandth of an amp

right or you might talk about micro amps

right ten to the minus six amps etc

something like this right so the base

unit is always amps it's just you have a

metric modifier on the front you might

have resistance how many owns you're

talking about in the circuit but it

might make more sense to talk about

milli ohms if it's a very small

resistance or even if it's tiny tiny

micro ohms right that's 10 to the minus

6 ohms right or if it's a large value

maybe you have kilo ohms or maybe you

even have mega ohms which is millions of

ohms right or here kilo ohms is

thousands of them so the the metric

system applies here there's nothing

special and for voltage maybe you have

millivolts you know maybe you have

kilovolts you know maybe you have mega

volts maybe a nuclear power plant is

operating at so many mega volts or

something like that very very important

concepts I can't stress them enough so

we've talked about current we've talked

about voltage we've talked about

resistance in detail because it's so

important for you to understand what

that stuff is it'll make my job easier

whenever we start talking about circuits

that you're not scratching your head

what's the voltage again I can't

remember I mean I really need you to

understand that before we get to

anything else now let's talk about some

general things that you've probably

heard growing up in general definition

so to speak that you probably heard

first one is DC and AC DC versus AC

let's talk about that for just a second

because it's you know it's something

that we need to make sure you understand

DC this stands for direct current right

and basically what it means is constant

current flow basically all of the

batteries you've ever used in your life

the triple A's double A's and nine volts

watch batteries I mean anything the

anything built into a little device that

we call battery always generates a

direct current it means that when you

hook it up to the circuit it's giving

you a constant voltage at the source

location right that's pushing current

around and because it's a constant

voltage is providing the current that

comes out as constant never changes now

in reality the battery is going to die

down and it's going to get weaker and

weaker so the current does eventually

bleed off but I mean if you take a

snapshot and look at it the current is a

constant it's called direct current all

right now let me contrast that to AC

which I know you've heard of and that's

called alternating current alternating

current and this means well exactly what

sounds like it's it's a wall socket and

it means the current for lack of a

better word moves back and forth and

this is really actually much easier to

understand what the with the purpose of

a with the drawing here so let's draw a

quick little circuit like this now

normally we've been putting plus/minus

but here I'm just going to kind of put a

little wave in here to kind of indicate

to you that this is a alternating

current and we'll get into all these

symbols later you know in detail I'm

just trying to get the idea out to you

what this means and this is a great

model for what's happening in your wall

socket when you plug something in you

know into the wall what happens is at

first the current comes out this

direction and flows this way and then it

starts to slow down then it goes back

the other way like this and then it goes

back the other way and it goes back the

other way it literally alternates the

direction of the current if you could

actually see the

tricity coming out of your wall like if

you could if you I'm looking at a plug

right now over there in the wall if you

can visualize a plug you know everybody

kind of thinks and realizes there's

electricity coming out but if you could

see the electricity you would see the

electricity racing out and then slowing

down and then going right back into the

wall and coming out the other way and

then racing back into the wall and

coming back the other way and it

alternates back and forth back and forth

back and forth back and forth how many

times does it do that well in the United

States it's 60 times a second 60 60

Hertz that's a unit of frequency that's

how fast it's coming back and forth 60

times every second that electricity is

switching directions right now you might

say I should say the number one question

you get when you explain alternating

current direct current is why do we have

a difference why do we have a difference

well the reason mainly is is a lot of

history actually but truthfully whenever

you generate electricity at a power

plant to feed houses it's much easier to

generate it as an alternating current

and it's much easier to transmit it out

to the homes as alternating current and

that goes into a lot of theory that I

can't get into right now but just trust

me on that it's a little bit easier you

know really all of our power plants

whether they're gas or nuclear or coal

or anything all they do is generate a

lot of heat and that heat heats up steam

usually and that steam turns a generator

so all of our power plants no matter how

fancy even the wind farms out there

they're just turning a generator so

since they're moving like this the

current that's generated actually

alternates back and forth and it comes

directly because every time we generate

electricity the only way we really know

how except for solar panels we're doing

it by rotating wire inside of a magnetic

field which is what's inside of a

generator because of that motion of

rotation is because direct result of how

we get alternating current and that's

the really reason why the power plants

do that when we build a battery it's a

chemical reaction it's either on or it's

off there's no motion inside of the

battery right so it's just going to give

you that constant deal the constant

current constant voltage so that's the

difference between DC and AC in this

class we're going to focus on DC first

we're going to learn all the techniques

of analyzing DC Circuit's because really

when you get to AC

it's once I show you the method it's

really not that different so we're going

to do DC first get really good at it and

then we're going to introduce the

alternating current mechanism just a

couple of other definitions I want to

get to real quick for call of the day

everybody's heard of this what is an

open circuit what do you think an open

circuit is well if you have a circuit

right if you have a circuit it's

supposed to come all the way back to

where it started if you have an open

circuit it means somewhere along that

path it's broken

basically so an open circuit would be if

I had some kind of source here like here

and then I had a break in it make this

break a little bigger then there's no

more current flow you cannot have

current flow in an open circuit by

definition so this open here this is

what your wall switch does when you flip

the wall switch it just breaks open the

circuit so no electricity can flow

anymore that's we call an open circuit

now let's also take a moment to talk

about a short circuit short lots of

people have heard of short circuit most

people know that short circuit is not

really good thing but a lot of people

don't know what a short circuit really

means when you think about it if you

have a circuit you've got a source and

you're supplying energy or electricity

to some load over here we call it could

be a light bulb could be a fan could be

a anything right so in general for every

circuit that's operating we're going to

have something over here that we're

supplying power to right this could be

anything at all I'm going to put a giant

box here this could be you know a fan

for instance right and this electricity

is coming out this current coming out

into the fan causing the fan to turn and

I'm leaving a lot of details out but

that's basically it now inside of your

circuit let's say I somehow a piece of

wire kind of accidentally connects from

here to here maybe you're working in a

building let's say you're building the

building you're pulling a wire through

the building and somehow a stray piece

of wire gets connected to two terminals

like this or maybe inside of your lamp

you develop a short-circuit because the

two wires that debtor's

to go to the light bulb maybe they start

to touch on accident what happens is the

electricity is coming out here and when

it gets to this Junction right here it

has a choice to go this way through the

fan or this way now let me ask you a

question what do you think is going to

be the lower resistance do you think

it's going to be lower resistance for

the electricity to go through this giant

fan and spend something around or do you

think it's going to be a lower

resistance for this electricity to try

to go through this little piece of wire

that you put there it's going to be much

much easier for the electricity to go

through the wire and so electricity is

always going to do that it always tries

to go through the path of least

resistance just like you do when you're

in traffic right you try to go the path

of least resistance so because of that

the electricity never even gets to the

fan so that's called a short circuit

it's called short because it kind of

truncates the circuit or it shortens off

the circuit and it's very bad for lots

of reasons but because whenever you

start to get current going through a

wire like this with no resistance or

very low resistance you can actually

generate a lot of heat and you can

actually cause a fire actually and

that's why you have those circuit

breakers outside of your home those are

there to detect if any short circuits

happen to detect the extra current the

increased current that comes from it and

to shut them off if you get any kind of

a short-circuit in your washer or your

dryer maybe some wires start to touch

the current is going to start to go up

really really fast through this tiny

little leg and your circuit breaker is

in the circuit with that it detects that

and then it shuts the circuit down so

that's basically how that how that works

that is about how all I want to talk

about in this lesson we've covered a lot

of things we haven't done any math

that's okay because you know sometimes

in the beginning you really need to take

some time to understand the fundamentals

so we learned about the circuit you

always have to have a complete circuit

to have any electricity flowing we

learned about current it's the flow of

electrons in real life but in a circuit

analysis we don't talk about that we

talk about the positive current and

going in the other direction has a

symbol of I all right

in there in terms of our equations right

the unit is amperes or a of course we

can talk about milliamps micro amps

kiloamps things like that as well and

then we talked about the voltage which

is

related the voltage is the push that

pushes the electric current around in

the circuit the higher the voltage then

the more push you have the more current

you're going to end up getting because

you're pushing you're pushing through

with more force for lack of a better

word right the units is a voltage that

we talked about or of course you have

millivolts micro volts etc and then we

talked about resistance which is

integral to all that that is sort of a

property of the circuit or the property

of the wire the property of the

components and it literally tries to

oppose the electric current the unit is

the ohm which is the capital Omega here

of course you can have milli ohms micro

ohms kilo ohms with that guy just like

you have for the others and then we

talked about some other random

definitions that people have heard over

the years of growing up direct current

DC alternating current AC this guy is

usually coming from a battery some

constant current source usually a

chemical reaction is giving you a

constant voltage constant current coming

out all the time

alternating current comes out of your

wall the reason it's alternating is

because it's easier to generate because

you have rotating generators and you

have easier transmission to the homes

there's a lot of theory in that but

that's basically the the deal and both

are you know both are electricity the

fact that it alternates doesn't really

mean much I mean your your light bulb

you don't see it flickering but the

electricity is actually going through

your light bulb back and forth 60 times

every second you don't see it because

it's so fast so don't get too wrapped up

or hung up on the difference here

they're both electricity they both

deliver energy and then we talked about

open circuit you have a circuit where

you literally take a piece of scissors

and cut it open no electricity can flow

anymore and a short circuit is when you

have an operating circuit that you that

you accidentally bridge or connect two

pieces across together and it basically

causes the electricity to not even go

into the load at all so the load stops

working you get tons of current built up

here and it can actually lead to smoke

and fire if you let it go and that's why

we have those circuit breakers in our

homes so that's what we want to cover in

this section the title was voltage

current and resistance it's so important

to understand so make sure and watch

this until you feel pretty comfortable

with it the next few sections I want to

do some more background stuff we'll talk

about taking an overview of the circuit

components out there and then we'll do

another lesson on on what we call ohm

which in mathematical terms relates

resistance current and voltage together

and I promise you Ohm's law is so simple

that you know you'll you know it was

boggle your mind very very simple to

understand and then once we get those

foundation things gone and going on then

we can really start diving into some

real real circuits and looking at how

the currents going to move through the

branches how they're going to sum

together what's going to be the value of

the voltage here the voltage there and

then we can get into some more

complicated circuit components like

capacitors and inductors and much later

even what we call transistors and diodes

and things like that and you'll be

introduced slowly but surely over time

to this beautiful thing I think that we

have in the 21st century called you know

electric circuits so the nice thing

about it is you can learn this stuff you

can you know academically understand it

it's good for your career and things if

that's what you plan to go into but also

you can take a trip to the store buy a

few components once you know what you're

doing and you can build a radio if you

want to you can build a blinking light

if you want to you can build an

alphanumeric display if you want to so

it's one of the few things that you can

really learn that once you understand it

you can really go out there and build it

if you learn about nuclear power plants

they're amazing but you're not going to

be able to go build a nuclear power

plant if you learn about Einstein's

theory of relativity it's amazing I love

that stuff but I'm not going to be able

to really test it myself but with

circuits once you understand it and

learn it you can actually play around

with it and that's what I find so

fascinating about it so I hope I've

kindled your interest a little bit stay

with me we're going to go through the

sections and dive into all of these

circuit analysis techniques I'll try to

make them as simple as possible but you

do you need to practice your problems

practice problems that we present here

and also the extra problems that are in

your textbook