Question

Kirchoff stated 2 laws concerning currents in an electrical circuit.
[1] One of these states that the sum of the potential changes (voltages) around any closed loop equals zero. What property of the electric potential at a point is the basis for this law?

[2] The other law states that the sum of currents entering a node must equal the sum of the currents leaving the node (or the sum of currents, with signs, at a node equals zero). (a) Given perfect conductors, what is the net charge at a node?

(b)What conservation law, when combined with (a), forms the basis for this second Kirchoff law?

Answer 1

Solution:

Let us go to the basics first.

Kirchoff stated 2 laws concerning currents in an electrical circuit.
[1] One of these states that the sum of the potential changes (voltages) around any closed loop equals zero. What property of the electric potential at a point is the basis for this law?

Answer: This Kirchhoff's law is based on the property of the electric potential which implies that the electric potential energy should be preserved in a closed circuit.

[2] The other law states that the sum of currents entering a node must equal the sum of the currents leaving the node (or the sum of currents, with signs, at a node equals zero). (a) Given perfect conductors, what is the net charge at a node? Answer: The net charge should be zero.

(b)What conservation law, when combined with (a), forms the basis for this second Kirchoff law?

Answer: This Kirchhoff's law implies that charge is not destroyed or created in a junction point (node). This is based by an electric charge conservation law.

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