Can someone be kind enough and help me with these questions.?

Question

I am 11 years old and my mum has allowed me to use her Yahoo Q & A. I need to know what is parallel connection and series connection in electricity. Your answers in simple terms will be highly appreciated.
Thank You
Zahra

Answer 1

Dear Zahara, Thank you for your question I will try and explain this as simply as I can. Series and parallel circuits are two basic ways of connecting electrical devices.i.e, stereos, TVs etc., A circuit is said to be in parallel if the ends of one circuit element is connected directly to the ends of the other circuit element. for example if we took two corn on the cobs and placed one on top of the other and took a string to attach each cob to its corresponding end this would be ( in electricity) called a parallel circuit. If however, corn cobs are connected end to end by the string these would be called,again in electrical terms, circuits connected in a series. Hope that helps. Good luck !

Answer 2

Think of it like streets and highways.

A series connection is like a street - you have a stoplight and an intersection wherever you want to make a turn. A parallel connection is like a highway - if you want to make a turn, you leave the highway but the traffic keeps moving.

So a parallel connection has two wires that carry the circuit, and two EXTRA wires that go to each of the light bulbs (or whatever). The series connection ONLY has the two wires and each light bulb (or whatever) is attached "in series" to those two wires.

Therefore, when a light bulb in a series connection goes out - POOF! - all the lights go out. If a light bulb in a parallel connection goes out - only that light goes out...or in other words, the traffic keeps moving!

Answer 3

Series is one after the other, so the power goes through each thing connected to it. If one of them stops working, like a blown out bulb, power stops going through the circuit. With a parallel circuit each thing such as a bulb is connected to both wires, so if one blows the rest of the items can still function. This would be used on Christmas tree lights.

Answer 4

Well Zahra, most electrical devices have 2 wires or connections coming out of them. Suppose you want to connect 2 bulbs in PARALLEL, then you would join one end of the first bulb to one end of the 2nd bulb.Next, you would connect the other ends similarly. When you connect this arrangement to a battery, each bulb will light up, INDEPENDENT of the other bulb!
If you want to connect the same 2 bulbs in SERIES, you would connect one end of the first bulb to one end of the second like before, but would stop there! Now you would connect the left-over or remaining wires(one from each bulb, right?) to the battery. Here, if one bulb fuses or goes bad, both bulbs stop lighting!!
Both these connections have their own advantages & Disadvantages. You will study more about them in higher classes. Good luck to you. If you want to know more, you can write to me at [e-mail]

Answer 5

Parallel connection is when the lights, for example (or whatever is connected), are all connected to the electric source on their own; the circuit in a sense separates and goes through each one separately. Series connection is when each light is connected on to the other, in a row, so that the circuit passes through each one on its way around.

Answer 6

parallell connection - A link between systems or resources in which several channels are active at the same time carrying several bit streams.
www.christlinks.com/glossary2.html

series- A method of connecting lamps or other devices to a battery where each load is connected along a single circuit of wire. This maintains a constant current to each device. If one of the devices fails, the circuit will be broken and none of the devices connected to it will function. (Think of Christmas tree lights.)
www.grote.com/tech/dictionary/

Answer 7

Think of it this way, most new christmas lights are wired with a parallel connection and are wired to where one light bulb goes out the rest don't, because they are wired with a bypass wire that goes past all the other bulbs. A series connection ,which used to be the way they wired christmas lights, is wired to where if one of the bulbs goes out the rest also do, because they are on one wire so if one bulb goes out it is like turning off the light switch in your house.

Answer 8

A series connection is when 2 or more electrical elements (resistor, capacitor, inductor, or load combination there of) are connected together low potential of the first element to high potential of the following element. Think of batteries and each end, you connection would be +-+-.

A parallel connection is when 2 or more electrical elements (resistor, capacitor, inductor, or load combination there of) are connected together at the high potential and low potential so the elements are side by side with the same voltage potential existing across voth elements. With batteries think of the positive ends being connected together (++) and the negative ends being connected together (--).

Answer 9

Well, a series conection is when there are lightbulbs connected with one wire to a battery. There may be more then one lightbulb and they all connect to one and other. A parallel circuit is when the light bulbs are parallel to each other with a wire seperating them.

Answer 10

Parallel connection: Two bulbs are in parallel if their terminals are connected together so that at each junction one terminal of one bulb is directly connected to one terminal of the other. (Refer to the source for pictures and more information)

all elements in a series connection have equal currents