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Voltage, also known as (electrical) potential difference, electric pressure, or electric tension is the difference in electric potential between two points. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] In a static electric field , it corresponds to the work needed per unit of charge to move a positive test charge from the first point to the second point.
At that time, the volt was defined as the potential difference [i.e., what is nowadays called the "voltage (difference)"] across a conductor when a current of one ampere dissipates one watt of power. The "international volt" was defined in 1893 as 1 ⁄ 1.434 of the emf of a Clark cell .
The electric potential and the magnetic vector potential together form a four-vector, so that the two kinds of potential are mixed under Lorentz transformations. Practically, the electric potential is a continuous function in all space, because a spatial derivative of a discontinuous electric potential yields an electric field of impossibly ...
That which is potential can theoretically be made actual by taking the right action; for example, a boulder on the edge of a cliff has potential to fall that could be actualized by pushing it over the edge. In physics, a potential may refer to the scalar potential or to the vector potential. In either case, it is a field defined in space, from ...
The electric potential outside each material is controlled by its work function, and so dissimilar metals can show an electric potential difference even at equilibrium. The Volta potential is not an intrinsic property of the two bulk metals under consideration, but rather is determined by work function differences between the metals' surfaces ...
Then the second finger represents the direction of the induced or generated current within the conductor (from + to −, the terminal with lower electric potential to the terminal with higher electric potential, as in a voltage source) The bolded letters in the directions above give a mnemonic way to remember the order.
In physics and chemistry, it is common to measure energy on the atomic scale in the non-SI, but convenient, units electronvolts (eV). 1 eV is equivalent to the kinetic energy acquired by an electron in passing through a potential difference of 1 volt in a vacuum. It is common to use the SI magnitude prefixes (e.g. milli-, mega- etc) with ...
Potential energy is the energy by virtue of an object's position relative to other objects. [6] Potential energy is often associated with restoring forces such as a spring or the force of gravity. The action of stretching a spring or lifting a mass is performed by an external force that works against the force field of the potential.