4 ms·

Just think of electricity of water flowing through a pipe. All the concepts are exactly the same. Electrons = Water molecules Battery = Water tank Wire = Pip

Just think of electricity of water flowing through a pipe. All the concepts are exactly the same. Electrons = Water molecules Battery = Water tank Wire = Pipe Load = Water mill Voltage difference = How high tank is from water mill Amps = Amount of water molecules flowing through pipe Resistor = Pipe with sand

globular-toast 6y ago
I don't think voltage is adequately explained like that. It doesn't matter how high a tank of water is, the force pushing it down is exactly the same. I think instead you need to use a pump which can vary the pressure.
- leoedin 6y ago
  The pressure of water at the bottom of a pipe is directly related to the height of the pipe (the term used is "head"). A higher tank means higher pressure.
- alisonkisk 6y ago
  The height of the pump increases the distance that the force will do work over (or how much kinetic energy the force will impart to a molecule), akin to how voltage will impart kinetic energy to the electron. Potential energy due to gravity is mgh. A pump adds more force to g. A tower increases h. What's nice about the pump is that it removes the special spatial directionality of gravity. In electricity, Earth is a voltage point-of- reference but not a spatial directional reference for computing forces.
alisonkisk 6y ago
One important difference is that for water we have gravity which is geographically directional at earthly human scales. So "high up" isn't as intuitively visualizable for electric circuits, unless you carefully arrange components so that distance is correlated to voltage.
zokier 6y ago
The problem I have with this sort of popular water analogy is that I don't really have any better intuition on hydraulics or fluid mechanics than I have on electronics. Maybe this has been different in the past when the water analogy was introduced, but I don't see it being very useful at least today.
- Cerium 6y ago
  Interesting. I spent a lot of time in my childhood playing with water in the sandbox, perhaps that made the analogy more real.
  - c22 6y ago
    For me it was playing Pipe Mania [0][1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipe_Mania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipe_Mania [1] https://archive.org/details/win3_PipeDr3x https://archive.org/details/win3_PipeDr3x
  - knodi123 6y ago
    so I guess water in a sandbox is the hydraulic analogy version of scuffing your feet on a shag carpet?
- creeble 6y ago
  Let me try with just the analogy of a hose and your thumb. Water is flowing out of the hose at some rate. If you put your thumb over the end of the hose, you can create a stream of water (of less volume) that shoots out a farther distance because of increased pressure (you can feel this pressure increase in your thumb). Think of amps as the volume of water, and voltage as the pressure. Power is voltage times current, or pressure times volume of water. You could squirt a stream of water many feet (raising the voltage), but it's not a very large quantity of water (amps). Conversely, with your thumb off the end of the hose, the pressure (volts) isn't very high (it just flows out at whatever your tap pressure is), but the volume of water is significant (amps). Curious whether that is any clearer of an analogy?
  - 6y ago

globular-toast 6y ago

I don't think voltage is adequately explained like that. It doesn't matter how high a tank of water is, the force pushing it down is exactly the same. I think instead you need to use a pump which can vary the pressure.

leoedin 6y ago
The pressure of water at the bottom of a pipe is directly related to the height of the pipe (the term used is "head"). A higher tank means higher pressure.
alisonkisk 6y ago
The height of the pump increases the distance that the force will do work over (or how much kinetic energy the force will impart to a molecule), akin to how voltage will impart kinetic energy to the electron. Potential energy due to gravity is mgh. A pump adds more force to g. A tower increases h. What's nice about the pump is that it removes the special spatial directionality of gravity. In electricity, Earth is a voltage point-of- reference but not a spatial directional reference for computing forces.

alisonkisk 6y ago

One important difference is that for water we have gravity which is geographically directional at earthly human scales. So "high up" isn't as intuitively visualizable for electric circuits, unless you carefully arrange components so that distance is correlated to voltage.

zokier 6y ago

The problem I have with this sort of popular water analogy is that I don't really have any better intuition on hydraulics or fluid mechanics than I have on electronics. Maybe this has been different in the past when the water analogy was introduced, but I don't see it being very useful at least today.

Cerium 6y ago
Interesting. I spent a lot of time in my childhood playing with water in the sandbox, perhaps that made the analogy more real.
- c22 6y ago
  For me it was playing Pipe Mania [0][1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipe_Mania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipe_Mania [1] https://archive.org/details/win3_PipeDr3x https://archive.org/details/win3_PipeDr3x
- knodi123 6y ago
  so I guess water in a sandbox is the hydraulic analogy version of scuffing your feet on a shag carpet?
creeble 6y ago
Let me try with just the analogy of a hose and your thumb. Water is flowing out of the hose at some rate. If you put your thumb over the end of the hose, you can create a stream of water (of less volume) that shoots out a farther distance because of increased pressure (you can feel this pressure increase in your thumb). Think of amps as the volume of water, and voltage as the pressure. Power is voltage times current, or pressure times volume of water. You could squirt a stream of water many feet (raising the voltage), but it's not a very large quantity of water (amps). Conversely, with your thumb off the end of the hose, the pressure (volts) isn't very high (it just flows out at whatever your tap pressure is), but the volume of water is significant (amps). Curious whether that is any clearer of an analogy?
- 6y ago