Learn. Practise. Build real understanding.
School subjects, languages, puzzles and practical skills—with worked examples, explanations and guided practice.
Series and parallel networks
Series components share one current path. Their resistances add. Parallel branches share the same voltage; for resistors, add the reciprocals of resistance to obtain the reciprocal of total resistance.
An open connection interrupts a path. A short creates an unintended low-resistance path and can cause overheating. Real sources have limitations, and actual components can behave differently from ideal resistor models.
Worked example
Two 100 Ω resistors in series total 200 Ω; in parallel they total 50 Ω.
Try it yourself
Draw both arrangements and explain why the parallel total is below either branch resistance.
Check your understanding
What is the total of two 100 Ω resistors in parallel?
1/R = 1/100 + 1/100, so R = 50 Ω.
References and further reading
Lessons and examples are original introductory material. These references offer further study; their material is not included as a copied course.
Save to Pinterest