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An advantage of having household circuits in parallel is that?
If they were in series you would have no power every time a tool or light bulb broke down
What are the two basic types of electric circuits?
There are many different types of circuits, but, in basic electricity, perhaps the two most common types of circuits are parallel and series.A parallel-connected circuit is one in which the current divides into two or more flows with at least one load on each flow, whereas a series circuit has only one flow that passes through two or more consecutive loads. The input voltage to a parallel-connected circuit stays constant - so every branch of the circuit gets the same voltage from the power supply - but there is a different current flowing in each branch dependant on the resistance of the loads in that branch. Overall, no current gets lost because any current entering a particular junction (leading to branches) is always equal to the current leaving that junction.In a series-connected circuit the input current stays constant and the voltage is divided amongst the loads which are connected like links in a chain: each load component (a light, a resistor, etc.) is connected "head to tail" to the next one in the series circuit.A more complete answerActually there are four types of circuit, not two. These are series circuits, parallel circuits, series-parallel circuits, and complex circuits.'Complex circuits' (which are not necessarily complicated) describe any circuit that is not series, parallel, or series-parallel - a Wheatstone Bridge is an example of a complex circuit.The techniques for solving series, parallel, and series-parallel circuits cannot be used for solving complex circuits. Instead, network theorems, such as Thevenin's and Norton's Theorems must be used.
What is the advantage of a parallel circuit over a series circuit?
In a parallel circuit the failure of one bulb reduces the light of that one bulb. In a series circuit the failure of any bulb causes all bulbs to stop producing light because the circuit itself fails. A break in a series circuit stops the current flow to the whole circuit. A break in a parallel circuit stops the flow only in that parallel branch, not the whole circuit. This independence from system loss by one failure is a parallel advantage.
Why wouldn't you want the circuits in your home to be series circuits?
In series, each device creates a voltage drop related to the current and impedence of the device, therefore, the voltage for the devices in the circuit are not the same. Addition: Also, in a series circuit, if one device fails, all others in the circuit would also "turn off" - think older strands of Christmas lights. Lets say for example that all the lights in your house were in a series circuit. When you turned the circuit on, all the lights would come on, but when you turn the switch off, all the lights would also go off (possibly useful when leaving for the day or going to bed). Now, one light bulb blows out...every light in the house would go out, leaving you to try replacing every light in the house until you found the correct one...in the dark.
When adding resistance in a series circuit what happens to supply voltage?
In a series circuit... Kirchoff's current law: The sum of the signed currents entering a node is zero. Since a series circuit consists of only nodes each connected to only two elements, this means that the current in every point in a series circuit is the same. Kirchoff's voltage law: The sum of the signed voltage drops in a series circuit is zero. This means, that if you segregate the sources from the loads, the total voltage across all the nodes is equal to the total voltage across all the sources. That may seem trite, but take the case where you have one battery in series with two resistors also in series. If you know the voltage across one resistor, then you know the voltage across the other resistor - it is the battery voltage minus the first resistor's voltage. Ohm's law: Voltage is current times resistance. This actually applies everywhere; series circuits, parallel circuits, DC circuits, AC circuits, etc.
