What is the difference between current and voltage, besides their units of measurement?

2 Answers
Jun 18, 2016

Needs checking!

See explanations

Explanation:

As I understand it: current is an indicator of the amount of electrons passing a point in in the circuit. Whilst voltage could be used as the potential energy that can move the current.

Someone else is bound to be able to explain it better than this but it will do for now.

Jun 18, 2016

You can see it in applied to water, it is easier to understand.

The voltage is a measurement of the difference of potential.
Imagine the Niagara Falls, the voltage is the height of the falls. If it is very high when the water will fall it will acquire a lot of energy.
So this is the energy that the water "potentially" has before falling.

The current is the quantity of water that moves in your river. It can be a little river or a big stream.

You can see why the power is then the product of voltage times the current.

If you have a lot of voltage (high fall) and a big current (a lot of water) the power transported is high. If the voltage is small, you can have a lot of water but it will travel slowly and if you have high fall but little water, the power is still not very high.