- #1
Mr Davis 97
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- 44
I have seen this topic in other threads before, but I have not found an answer that eliminates my confusion. I know that electric potential is defined so that only the position of a charge with respect to a field determines the quantity of the electric potential (voltage). This allows us to quantify, generally, how spatial orientation with respect to a field affects the specific potential energy of a specific charge with some amount of coulombs. This all being said, I don't understand why there is a "voltage drop" after charged particles enter an element (such as a resistor) in a circuit. If we say that a battery creates an electric field and thus well-defined electric potentials around the field, then how come there is a drop in electric potential after a particle enters a a resistor, if that charged particle is roughly the same distance from the battery which the electric field comes from? I've heard people say that there is a voltage drop because the charged particles lose energy in the resistor, but if voltage is electric potential and not electric potential energy, then how does the fact that they lose energy affect electric potential (voltage), which is defined as the amount of potential energy per coulomb? I think my confusion lies in the concept of voltage. Basically I don't know how voltage is supposed to drop when there is a definite, constant amount of voltage for the battery.