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@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@ At some point after the bend in the river, the river will eventually reach the o
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The water analogy further breaks down here when we begin thinking about current. In the river analogy, even when the river meets the ocean, there is still current. The ocean is constantly moving. So the individual water molecules never stop moving. Rivers flow because of gravity; you call the difference in altitude between a river's origin and its exit to the sea as the *potential difference*. Because of the external force of gravity, the river flows down the terrain towards lower elevations, until it eventually reaches sea level. At that point, there is no longer a *potential difference* in the river's trajectory, if there were no more external forces acting on the water, it would have no more reason to flow. There would be no current. (Let us exclude for a moment the idea of all the various forces that can act upon a still body of water to induce currents in an otherwise level body of water at sea level).
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Circuits behave similarly to the river in the analogy. Current only flows in an electrical circuit because there is a potential difference between one end of the circuit and the other. There is a positive and a negative; a source and a return; a supply and a ground. The difference in charge between these two points is expressed as a *potential difference*, otherwise known as a *voltage*. This difference in charge between two points is what causes current to flow, like the elevation difference in the river analogy. Whenever a circuit has no potential difference - meaning that the voltage between point A and point B is essentially 0 volts - there is no current flow. The water is perfectly still. And this brings us to the second interesting question.
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Circuits behave similarly to the river in the analogy, but not exactly, because they don't have the same external forces working on them in the same way. Current only flows in an electrical circuit because there is a potential difference between one end of the circuit and the other. There is a positive and a negative; a source and a return; a supply and a ground. The difference in charge between these two points is expressed as a *potential difference*, otherwise known as a *voltage*. This difference in charge between two points is what causes current to flow, like the elevation difference in the river analogy. Whenever a circuit has no potential difference - meaning that the voltage between point A and point B is essentially 0 volts - there is no current flow. The water is perfectly still. And this brings us to the second interesting question.
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2. At what point downstream from that bend can you no longer detect the impact of the bend on the velocity of the water? Or, for our circuits, at what point does the voltage change from the resistance of the bend become undetectable?
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