Physics E-1bx: Pre-reading for Lecture 2 January 31, 2017

Lecture 2: Pre-reading
The first important concept for today’s lecture is: Current is the flow of charge.
So we want to know:
• How and why does charge flow, anyway?
• How can you create a current?
• How much current can you create?
First of all, in order for charge to flow there must be some “free” charges that are able to flow.
Any material that has mobile charges—charges that are free to move—is called an electrical
conductor. The most common examples of conductors are metals: as you know, metals contain
electrons that are more or less free to move anywhere within the metal. (You may have seen in a
chemistry course a model for metals called the “electron sea” model: a sea of freely mobile
electrons surrounding positively charged metal ions.) Metals are good conductors because these
electrons can flow and create an electric current. In biology, the most important conductors are
aqueous solutions that contain ions. Salt water is a good example: it contains Na+ and Cl– ions
that are free to move in the water. All aqueous solutions in biology (like the cyotsol, for
instance) contain ions and are thus excellent conductors.
Any material that does not have mobile charges is called an insulator. Insulators
definitely contain charged particles—electrons and nuclei—but these charges can only “wiggle”
a little bit, they can’t actually flow or move very far. Glass, rubber, oil, and air are all insulators.
The lipid membrane surrounding a cell is an insulator—it’s like a thin layer of “oil” that
surrounds the cell. Pure water is also an insulator, since it contains very few free ions. Most
materials are either strong insulators or strong conductors and there are very few “in between.”
One interesting “in between” example is concrete, which contains ions that are somewhat mobile
depending on the water content, acidity, and chemical composition of the concrete.
So, in order to have a current you must have a conductor in which the current can flow.
Now, how can you make charge flow? Apply a force! And how do you exert a force on a
charge? Subject it to a potential gradient! So:
if a conductor is subjected to a potential gradient then charge will flow.
Note that by the rules of logic, this means that if no charge is flowing in a conductor—if the
conductor is in electrostatic equilibrium—then there cannot be a potential gradient anywhere in
Physics E-1bx: Pre-reading for Lecture 2 January 31, 2017

or on the conductor. In other words, any conductor at equilibrium will have the same potential
everywhere—it will be an equipotential.
If you do apply a potential gradient across a conductor (say, with a battery), then charge
will flow and you’ll create a current. As an example, consider two electrodes placed in a tank of
salt water and connected to a 9V battery. The electrodes create a potential gradient of 9V across
the tank. Inside the solution, Na+ ions will feel a force from the potential gradient, and they will
start to accelerate. But they also experience a viscous drag force, given by Fdrag = fv, where f is
the drag coefficient. The ions quickly reach a terminal velocity when these forces balance, and
the ions flow through the solution at a constant speed. This is a current! As we’ll see in class,
the amount of current depends on many factors. For instance, a greater terminal velocity will
mean a greater current.
Since the terminal velocity is proportional to the electric force, and the electric force is
proportional to the potential difference DV, the current will be proportional to DV. We can
express this relationship in many ways; the simplest is called Ohm’s Law, in which all other
factors are rolled up into a single parameter R, called the resistance:
ΔV
From resistance (Ohm’s Law): i=
R
The next big idea in today’s lecture will be capacitance. A capacitor is simply a pair of
conductors (usually metals) separated by an insulator or an air gap. Imagine for instance two
metal spheres sitting on a table but not touching one another (so they are insulated from one
another). Let’s call them conductor A and conductor B. In equilibrium, conductor A will have
the same potential everywhere in and on it. So we can simply refer to the potential of A, or VA.
Likewise, conductor B will have the same potential everywhere in and on it. So we can refer to
its potential as VB. Since the two conductors are insulated from each other, VA can be different
from VB. We define the potential difference or the voltage of a capacitor as DV = VA – VB.
This is the voltage of the capacitor. Note that since it is defined as the difference in potential, it
is always a well-defined quantity (there’s no issue about the potential being arbitrary).
Now, how could you end up with a potential difference between two conductors in a
capacitor? Usually, capacitors start out uncharged, with a voltage DV = 0. Then you use a
battery or some other means to transfer charge from one conductor to the other. As a result, one
of the conductors will end up with a positive charge +q, and the other conductor will end up with
Physics E-1bx: Pre-reading for Lecture 2 January 31, 2017

a negative charge –q. Note that the total charge on the capacitor remains zero—you’re just
transferring charge from one conductor to the other. Yet once the charge is transferred we refer
to the magnitude q as the charge on the capacitor.
As we’ll discuss in lecture, it turns out that for a fixed arrangement of two conductors, the
voltage DV and the charge q on a capacitor are proportional. We define a proportionality
constant called the capacitance, C, as follows:
q
ΔV =
C
The capacitance is a fixed property of a capacitor (it is often printed on the outside of the
capacitor). If you know the capacitance, then you know the relationship between the charge q
and the voltage DV for the capacitor.
Finally, we’ll talk about circuits in which batteries, resistors, capacitors, and other circuit
elements are connected together by wires (conductors). A battery creates a potential difference
(voltage), which can cause current to flow. We will analyze some very simple circuits in
preparation for next week’s class in which we will focus on
circuits.
An essential tool in circuit analysis is the circuit
diagram, which shows the circuit elements and how they
are connected. The diagram at right shows one of the
simplest possible circuits: just a battery and a resistor. The
battery is represented by alternating short and long parallel lines; the long line represents the
positive (+) terminal of the battery. Resistors are represented by zig-zag lines. Since every wire
is a good conductor, each wire is (approximately) an equipotential surface. That is, the voltage
does not change as you move along a wire (to an excellent approximation).
When several circuit elements are connected together,
they could be connected in series—one right after another. When
resistors are connected in series, as shown in the diagram at right,
the current through R1 is the same as the current through R2, etc.
That is, series elements all have the same current. But the
voltage DV across the three resistors is the sum of the three
voltages: DVtotal = DV1 + DV2 + DV3.
Physics E-1bx: Pre-reading for Lecture 2 January 31, 2017

Alternately, you can connect circuit elements

in parallel. The diagram at right shows an example
of three resistors connected in parallel. In this case,
the parallel elements all have the same voltage.
The wire along the top is connected to the (+)
terminal of the battery, so everywhere on that wire
will have the same voltage (say, +9V), while the bottom wire is connected to the (–) terminal, so
everywhere on that wire will have, say, 0V. However, the total current through the three
resistors will be the sum of the currents through each one: itotal = i1 + i2 + i3.

• Learning objectives: After this lecture, you will be able to…

1. Describe how to calculate the potential created by a continuous distribution of charge by
adding up the potentials from all of the tiny “bits of charge” in the distribution.
2. Calculate the potential created by some common continuous distributions of charge: a
ring of charge, a disk of charge, and a sphere of charge.
3. Describe the difference between a conductor and an insulator.
4. Explain why any conductor at equilibrium will have the same electric potential
everywhere on its surface and inside it.
5. Derive a simple model to show how the electric current carried by ions in a solution is
related to:
• the charge of the ion, q
• the drag coefficient of the ion, f (this is viscous drag like Stokes’s Law)
• the concentration of ions, c
• the potential gradient across the solution, DV/L
• the cross-sectional area of the solution, A

6. Describe the behavior of conductors in terms of conductivity or resistivity.

7. Derive Ohm’s Law that relates current, voltage, and resistance
8. Explain what a capacitor is, define capacitance C, and calculate the capacitance of
parallel-plate and spherical capacitors.
9. Explain what we mean by electrical circuit and construct simple circuits involving
resistors or capacitors in series or in parallel.
10. Explain the concept of an equivalent resistor.
11. Replace several resistors (either in series or in parallel) with a single equivalent resistor.