Kirchhoff's Current Law
Cody Ross
8/8/14
Physics
Kirchhoff's Current Law is one of two fundamental laws in electrical engineering, the other being Kirchhoff's Voltage Law. Kirchhoff’s Current Law is a fundamental law, as fundamental as Conservation of Mass in mechanics, for example, because Kirchhoff’s Current Law is really conservation of charge. Kirchhoff's Voltage Law and Kirchhoff’s Current Law are the starting point for analysis of any circuit. Kirchhoff’s Current Law and Kirchhoff's Voltage Law always hold and are usually the most useful piece of information you will have about a circuit after the circuit itself. People and computer programs both use Kirchhoff's Voltage Law and Kirchhoff’s Current Law for circuit analysis. Kirchhoff's Current Law is not as complex as it might seem. All one really needs to know is that charge is conserved, so Kirchhoff's Current Law is really based on one simple fact: Charge can neither be created nor destroyed. From that basic fact we can get to Kirchhoff's Current Law. Despite that simplicity, it is a fundamental, widely used law that you need to know to go very far in electrical engineering. The principle of conservation of electric charge implies that at any node in an electrical circuit, the sum of currents flowing into that node is equal to the sum of currents flowing out of that node. The algebraic sum of currents in a network of conductors meeting at a point is zero. The law is based on the conservation of charge where the charge is the product of the current and the time. Kirchhoff's Current Law is valid if the charge density remains constant at the point to which it is applied. More generally, Kirchhoff's Current Law remains valid if the total electric charge in the investigated region remains constant with time.
8/8/14
Physics
Kirchhoff's Current Law is one of two fundamental laws in electrical engineering, the other being Kirchhoff's Voltage Law. Kirchhoff’s Current Law is a fundamental law, as fundamental as Conservation of Mass in mechanics, for example, because Kirchhoff’s Current Law is really conservation of charge. Kirchhoff's Voltage Law and Kirchhoff’s Current Law are the starting point for analysis of any circuit. Kirchhoff’s Current Law and Kirchhoff's Voltage Law always hold and are usually the most useful piece of information you will have about a circuit after the circuit itself. People and computer programs both use Kirchhoff's Voltage Law and Kirchhoff’s Current Law for circuit analysis. Kirchhoff's Current Law is not as complex as it might seem. All one really needs to know is that charge is conserved, so Kirchhoff's Current Law is really based on one simple fact: Charge can neither be created nor destroyed. From that basic fact we can get to Kirchhoff's Current Law. Despite that simplicity, it is a fundamental, widely used law that you need to know to go very far in electrical engineering. The principle of conservation of electric charge implies that at any node in an electrical circuit, the sum of currents flowing into that node is equal to the sum of currents flowing out of that node. The algebraic sum of currents in a network of conductors meeting at a point is zero. The law is based on the conservation of charge where the charge is the product of the current and the time. Kirchhoff's Current Law is valid if the charge density remains constant at the point to which it is applied. More generally, Kirchhoff's Current Law remains valid if the total electric charge in the investigated region remains constant with time.