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Basic Concepts of Electricity - Electronics Textbook

A circuit allows for continuous electron flow by forming a loop with no beginning or end, like a hula hoop filled with marbles constantly pushing each other around the loop. This means electrons can flow indefinitely without needing infinite sources and destinations. For a circuit to work, it must maintain continuity - any break in the conductive material of the circuit will stop electron flow throughout the entire loop.

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Afiqah Zainuddin
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89 views

Basic Concepts of Electricity - Electronics Textbook

A circuit allows for continuous electron flow by forming a loop with no beginning or end, like a hula hoop filled with marbles constantly pushing each other around the loop. This means electrons can flow indefinitely without needing infinite sources and destinations. For a circuit to work, it must maintain continuity - any break in the conductive material of the circuit will stop electron flow throughout the entire loop.

Uploaded by

Afiqah Zainuddin
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Electric circuits

You might have been wondering how electrons can continuously ow in a uniform direction
through wires without the bene t of these hypothetical electron Sources and Destinations. In
order for the Source-and-Destination scheme to work, both would have to have an in nite capacity
for electrons in order to sustain a continuous ow! Using the marble-and-tube analogy, the marble
source and marble destination buckets would have to be in nitely large to contain enough marble
capacity for a " ow" of marbles to be sustained.
The answer to this paradox is found in the concept of a circuit: a never-ending looped pathway for
electrons. If we take a wire, or many wires joined end-to-end, and loop it around so that it forms a
continuous pathway, we have the means to support a uniform ow of electrons without having to
resort to in nite Sources and Destinations:

Each electron advancing clockwise in this circuit pushes on the one in front of it, which pushes on
the one in front of it, and so on, and so on, just like a hula-hoop lled with marbles. Now, we have
the capability of supporting a continuous ow of electrons inde nitely without the need for in nite
electron supplies and dumps. All we need to maintain this ow is a continuous means of
motivation for those electrons, which we'll address in the next section of this chapter.
It must be realized that continuity is just as important in a circuit as it is in a straight piece of wire.
Just as in the example with the straight piece of wire between the electron Source and Destination,
any break in this circuit will prevent electrons from owing through it:

An important principle to realize here is that it doesn't matter where the break occurs. Any
discontinuity in the circuit will prevent electron ow throughout the entire circuit. Unless there is a
continuous, unbroken loop of conductive material for electrons to ow through, a sustained ow
simply cannot be maintained.

REVIEW:
A circuit is an unbroken loop of conductive material that allows electrons to ow through
continuously without beginning or end.
If a circuit is "broken," that means its conductive elements no longer form a complete path,
and continuous electron ow cannot occur in it.
The location of a break in a circuit is irrelevant to its inability to sustain continuous electron
ow. Any break, anywhere in a circuit prevents electron ow throughout the circuit.

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