ELECTRICAL CIRCUITS

When one, or more, electrical components are joined together to a cell it is called a circuit. Electricity will not flow if there are any breaks in this circuit.

SERIES AND PARALLEL CIRCUITS

If you have a battery and two bulbs there are two ways of connecting them to make a circuit:

Series circuit

(a) in SERIES - the bulbs are connected one after the other.
In this circuit the current is the SAME AT ALL POINTS IN THE CIRCUIT (see Figure 1)

Parallel circuit

(b) in PARALLEL - the bulbs are connected side by side.
The current SPLITS AT THE JUNCTIONS (S), some going one way and some the other.
If the bulbs are exactly the same then exactly the same current will flow through each bulb (see Figure 2)






If the batteries and bulbs in both circuits are the same then:
(a) the bulbs in the parallel circuit will be brighter than those in the series circuit
(b) the battery in the parallel circuit will run down quicker than the one in the series circuit