Now we're ready to talk about resistors

and Ohm's law.

So a resistor is common circuit element.
And we use this zig zag line to represent
the tortuous path electrons have to take
to pass through this resistor.
And these are for the value of resistors.
There's this symbol here, the node of
resistor.
And lets say that there's a voltage
potential difference of v applied across
the resistor.
Then there's going to be a current
flowing through the resistor from high
potential to low potential and Ohm's law
tells you the relationship between the
voltage, the current And the resistance.
So, it's just v equals i times r.
Or, if you want to rewrite it, the
current that's going to flow through this
resistor is the applied potential
difference divided by the resistance.
So, for a fixed voltage level A high
resistance is going to allow a very small
current to flow.
A lower resistance of course, would let
more current flow.
So you can kind of think of resistance as
sort of the analogy of fluid flowing
through a pipe or a straw.
So let's say I have two vessels filled
with water and a pipe connecting them,
and let's say I come along and I put a
higher pressure in this one, say put a
piston and press on it?
water is going to flow through the pipe
and if the pipe is small and has a very
large flow resistance And a very small
flow.
If I have the same situation with a much
larger pipe.
Then the same pressure difference or the
same tensile difference is going to give
you a much larger current or a much
larger flow.
Okay, now that you've been introduced to
Ohm's law, to start building circuits we
need one other thing.
We need a battery.
So a battery is just a source of voltage.
And the representation of a battery is is
this, showing the, the The cathode and
anode plates of the battery.
The positive side of the battery is the
higher potential, this is lower potential
side of the battery.
So a typical AA battery has a potential
difference of about 1.5 volts between the
plus terminal and the minus terminal.
So we can take that battery and we can

connect it with a resistor across it and

a very simple circuit here.
So by this battery is going to establish
a potential difference across the
resistor and a current's going to flow.
And so the voltage across the resistor is
v.
So using ohm's law, the current flowing
through the resistor, and that's also the
same current has to flow through the
battery so that current is coming from
the battery.
So the current coming from the battery
flowing through the resistor is just v
over r Now this suggests a a method for
solving a circuit like this, and what
this really is is a very simple
illustration of Kirchoff's voltage law.
Kirchoff's voltage law says that the sum
of the voltages going around a closed
path in a circuit Has to sum up to 0.
So it's the sum of the voltage across
every element.
If I add them all up and follow a closed
path, it's 0.
So in this case, if I start at point A
and I go through the battery this
direction, so I'm traversing the circuit
in the direction that I've defined.
The current flow to be positive.
So I start at point a and I go through
the battery from the low side to the high
side, and I picked up a voltage v and
then I dropped a voltage r.
There's a voltage drop across the
resistor.
I'm losing energy.
And the sum of the VI pickup and the V
lost across the resistor has to be zero.
So, you can think of this, really, as
kind of a roller coaster.
So, if I start at some point in the
roller coaster and I follow the closed
loop with ups and downs, I come back to
the same point And the change in my
potential, I go up to a higher potential
energy and then and where I he, hit the
top of the hill I have maximum potential
energy and I'm, I'm barely moving in the
car and then the car goes down the, down
the hill and the potential energy's
converted into kinetic energy.
But if I take and I keep track of how
much potential energy I have at every
point going around this closed loop, when
I come back, all of those gains when I go
up hills, and loses of potential energy
when I go downhill, they all have to add
up to zero because after all I ended up
back at the same point that I started at.

So, let's take another look at this same

circuit.
And apply Kirchhoff's Voltage Law to come
to the same conclusion.
So this is, this is trivial.
But, it really illustrates the
methodology, which is the important
thing.
So, Kirchhoff's voltage law says the sum
of the voltages is zero.
So, we start at a, and we're going to go
clockwise around the circuit.
So, the voltage increases from minus to
plus by an amount v.
You want to go up through the batter and
then there is a voltage drop of v when I
go through the resistor.
So using Kirchhoff's voltage law I go up
V, so I pick up a plus V, then I drop a
voltage which is equal to in size, equal
to I times R.
So the sum of the voltage picked up plus
the voltage dropped, or the voltage lost.
Which is minus i r, has to be zero.
And so this is trivial to solve, it says
v equals i r or i is v over r, which is
Ohm's law.
So this is a lot of formality to retrieve
Ohm's law.
But it's now put us in a position using
Kirchhoff's voltage law.
To start to solve more complicated
circuits.
So this circuit voltage divider is
actually useful in audio applications.
Like for volume control.
So let's say I have a voltage, I have a
battery, and I connect two resistors in
series across that battery.
Now I'm going to have, I have 1 loop and
there's a current that's going to flow
round this loop.
And now I have what I want to find is I
want to calculate the current and I
want to find the voltage at B.
Now the voltage at A I'm going to define
to be 0.
If you go back.
We were talking about, we're free to set
the zero of potential to, the zero of
electric potential to anything we want.
And so I'm going to just arbitrarily say,
this point of the circuit is grounded.
So this is zero potential.
Then if I take the negative side of a
battery and connect it to that ground the
battery is going to give me a boost of
plus 1.5 volts if it's a double A battery
when I go from the negative to the
positive terminal.

And then this is a high potential up

here.
It's a one, one and a half volts.
And I'm going to lose some of that
voltage by going through this resistor
and then the rest of it by going through
that resistor.