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The Physics Behind The Lighting in Your House
The Physics Behind The Lighting in Your House
in your House
Circuits, Switches and Lights
The Basics
To begin, there are a few simple things to understand
about the lighting in your house:
This works because the electrons that flow through the circuit, giving the lights
power, are pushed away from the negative side, through the circuit, and are
pulled toward the positive side.
The Circuit
When you add a resistor to a circuit, the charge will flow through it. This gives
the resistor, in this case light bulbs, the energy they need to work.
In your home, all the lights are connected in a parallel circuit. They obtain
power from the same voltage source, but they exist on different wires as to
not interfere with each others flow. If your lights were connected in a series
circuit, any malfunction of one light would affect all others.
Switches
When a circuit is closed, charges can flow. When it is open, they can’t. A
switch is what allows you to manually open or close a circuit. This is very
important when it comes to the lights in your house.
Parallel wires in the circuit have their own switches. This is so that you
can switch a certain light on or off without affecting all the other lights in
your home. However, not every light is controlled by a switch, and
therefore not every parallel wire has a switch in it.
Lightbulb
-When the electrons reach the lightbulb, they travel through
the contact wires and into the filament. The electrons heat
up the filament to the point that it will produce photons,
which create the visible light.
Light
When a lightbulb is finally powered, it must produce a certain type of light,
with specific wavelengths and frequencies, in order to give you the type of
light you need.