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series and parallel circuits

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the two basic ways of connecting the components of an electrical circuit

~19 min read

Encyclopedic overview

A series circuit with a voltage source (such as a battery, or in this case a cell) and three resistance units

Two-terminal components and electrical networks can be connected in series or parallel. The resulting electrical network will have two terminals, and itself can participate in a series or parallel topology. Whether a two-terminal "object" is an electrical component (e.g. a resistor) or an electrical network (e.g. resistors in series) is a matter of perspective. This article will use "component" to refer to a two-terminal "object" that participates in the series/parallel networks.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “series and parallel circuits” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.