Electricity is an important part our daily lives, without it, we would live in a world without the modern day conveniences of telecommunications, household appliances and computer technology. From the first theories created by Benjamin Franklin, contemporary scientists now have a greater understanding of natural phenomena such as lightning and the harnessing of electrical energy for modern day uses.

In this topic, we’ll try to give you and introduction to the basics of electrodynamics, focussing on how electrical circuits work. You will learn the definition of current, resistance, power, and voltage as well as how to use ohms law to calculate the voltage, resistance and current, in various circuit calculations.

By the end of this topic, we hope you will have achieved the following goals:

Define electric current.

Define resistance and calculate the total resistance in a circuit.

Define Voltage, and use Ohm's law to calculate the potential difference in a circuit.

Calculate the potential difference across a resistor.

Calculate the resistance, current and voltage in harder circuits. (ie. In series and/or parallel circuits).

Ok, now that you have a basic idea of what this topic is about, its time to move on to your first lesson, which will teach you about electric current. Warm up your brain, and then click the arrow below to continue.