The Physics Behind the

Lighting 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:

- All the lights in your house are connected in a

circuit
- You can control many of the lights in your house
by using switches
- In order to produce the kind of light needed to
light your house, the waves must be configured
in a certain way
The Circuit
For a lightbulb to work, it needs energy. This is provided by a voltage source.
The circuit must always be attached to both ends of the voltage source, one
positive and one negative, to stay flowing.

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.

Lights differentiate in many ways. They can be white light or colored, be

focused and coherent, or spread out.
Light
The majority of the lights in your house are meant to light
your entire room, generally with white light. In order for
this to happen, the light waves must adhere to certain
criteria.

The light must be incoherent. This means that the

wavelengths do not match up with each other. If they did,
the light would be a focused beam, like a laser.

If you want a white light, in addition to being incoherent,

the light waves must be of different wavelengths and
frequencies, and therefore colors.
Conclusion
- The lights in your house are connected in a parallel circuit
- Switches control whether or not your lights are on by opening or closing
the circuit
- The electrons flowing through the circuit and lightbulb are what causes it
to light up
- The wavelength, frequency, and coherency of the lightwaves will affect
what type of light you see