Electric potential and electric current are driving me insane. Am I this much of a brainlet to not be able to comprehend them? The more I learn about those subjects the more questions I get. For example:
1. How do you even apply a potential difference in a circuit? I mean, I know that a battery has a positive and a negative terminal, but how does one apply potential to them? Is it done by stacking lots of electrons on the negative terminal and removing them from the positive one?
2. Let's consider a simple, one single-loop circuit consisting of a battery connected to a capacitor. The circuit is considered closed, but there's a gap in it - mainly the gap between the capacitor's plates. How does the current even flow through such a circuit?
3. Let's consider a single-loop circuit with resistors connected in a series (pic related, from Fundamentals of Physics). The textbook states that the current flowing through every capacitor is the same. How is that possible? Isn't the whole point of the capacitor to reduce the current flowing through it?
4. Let's consider a vertical wire that branches out horizontally into a left and a right part. How does the vertical current going near those branches "know" whether to go to the left or to the right one?
I've literally aced all the other physics subjects up until now, so it's making me even more embarrased than ever.
1. How do you even apply a potential difference in a circuit? I mean, I know that a battery has a positive and a negative terminal, but how does one apply potential to them? Is it done by stacking lots of electrons on the negative terminal and removing them from the positive one?
2. Let's consider a simple, one single-loop circuit consisting of a battery connected to a capacitor. The circuit is considered closed, but there's a gap in it - mainly the gap between the capacitor's plates. How does the current even flow through such a circuit?
3. Let's consider a single-loop circuit with resistors connected in a series (pic related, from Fundamentals of Physics). The textbook states that the current flowing through every capacitor is the same. How is that possible? Isn't the whole point of the capacitor to reduce the current flowing through it?
4. Let's consider a vertical wire that branches out horizontally into a left and a right part. How does the vertical current going near those branches "know" whether to go to the left or to the right one?
I've literally aced all the other physics subjects up until now, so it's making me even more embarrased than ever.
