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How does the Loop Rule in Kirchoff's Laws come from energy conservation? Energy is added through the battery.

Yes, energy is added by the battery, but exactly the same amount of energy is dissipated by the resistors.

The gravitational analogy works well here for thinking about energy (both electric and gravitational forces are conservative forces which can be associated with a potential). The electric potential (voltage) is potential energy per charge. A charge going around a circuit is pumped ``up'' by a battery, then makes an ``ohmic drop'' through a resistor. This is like moving a ball up and letting it fall, in a closed loop under gravity. You supply energy to move the ball up, increasing its gravitational potential energy, but then exactly that amount of potential energy gets turned into kinetic energy as the ball falls back to the level at which it started.

In the electric circuit case, the battery increases a charge's potential energy, and that potential energy gets turned into kinetic energy as the charge goes through the resistor-- and then the kinetic energy ends up transferred to atoms in the resistor and so eventually turns into heat (which could also be the case for the ball if the ball hits the ground and dissipates its kinetic energy).


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Kate Scholberg 2017-01-17