Electric Circuits - Mission E3 Detailed Help


A battery does 6 Joules of work on each coulomb of charge that it encounters. What is the voltage of the battery?


 
Definition of Electric Potential:
Electric potential is a location dependent quantity that expresses the amount of potential energy per unit of charge at a specified location. Mathematically, electric potential is the quantity of energy per unit of charge. Typical units on electric potential are Joules per Coulomb (abbreviated J/C). The term voltage is sometimes used in place of the phrase electric potential. Because of the use of the term voltage, the units of electric potential is the Volt. One volt is equivalent to a J/C.


 
The role of a battery in an electric circuit is to do work upon an electric charge. By doing work upon the charge, the battery moves charge to a high energy and high potential location. Once there, the charge can naturally move through the external circuit back to the low energy terminal. As mentioned in the Define Help section, electric potential or voltage describes the amount of electric potential energy per unit of charge at a specific location. A 12-volt battery provides 12 Joules of energy for every 1 Coulomb of charge that it moves from the low energy location to the high energy location. As such, the voltage rating of a battery simply describes the energy change of every coulomb of charge that is moved between terminals.


 

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