Define Voltage?

Answer 1

Okay.

Answer 2

Voltage is a quantitative expression of the potential difference in charge between two points in an electrical field.

Answer 3

Voltage is the difference of electrical potential between two points of an electrical or electronic circuit, expressed in volts [1]. It measures the potential energy of an electric field to cause an electric current in an electrical conductor. Depending on the difference of electrical potential it is called extra low voltage, low voltage, high voltage or extra high voltage.

great web site for all your questions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltage

Answer 4

Voltage is the electrical pressure, or potential difference, that causes an electrical current to flow.

Answer 5

Mathematical definition
The electrical potential difference is defined as the amount of work needed to move a unit electric charge from the second point to the first, or equivalently, the amount of work that a unit charge flowing from the first point to the second can perform.

Answer 6

Voltage, also known as electromotive force, is the rate at which electrons move within a conductor (such as a copper wire). The word volt is for the scientist Voltaire who discoved (or at least theorized) electron movement.

Answer 7

voltage is the difference of potential according to the books I studied over the years.

Answer 8

The difference in electrical potential between two points in a circuit expressed in volts.

Answer 9

voltage

Voltage, also called electromotive force, is a quantitative expression of the potential difference in charge between two points in an electrical field. The greater the voltage, the greater the flow of electrical current (that is, the quantity of charge carriers that pass a fixed point per unit of time) through a conducting or semiconducting medium for a given resistance to the flow. Voltage is symbolized by an uppercase italic letter V or E. The standard unit is the volt, symbolized by a non-italic uppercase letter V. One volt will drive one coulomb (6.24 x 1018) charge carriers, such as electrons, through a resistance of one ohm in one second.
Voltage can be direct or alternating. A direct voltage maintains the same polarity at all times. In an alternating voltage, the polarity reverses direction periodically. The number of complete cycles per second is the frequency, which is measured in hertz (one cycle per second), kilohertz, megahertz, gigahertz, or terahertz. An example of direct voltage is the potential difference between the terminals of an electrochemical cell. Alternating voltage exists between the terminals of a common utility outlet.

A voltage produces an electrostatic field, even if no charge carriers move (that is, no current flows). As the voltage increases between two points separated by a specific distance, the electrostatic field becomes more intense. As the separation increases between two points having a given voltage with respect to each other, the electrostatic flux density diminishes in the region between them.




Take an object in your hand, raise it to a certain position, then drop it. Your object will drop and - bang! - it will hit the floor. By doing that, your object performs work. You can see that by placing a fragile object on the floor: Your falling object will break it and that certainly requires work. If you measure the work done by the falling object, you'll see that the heavier your object is and the higher you've raised it, the more work it is capable of doing when it falls down. The capability of doing work is called energy. As your object is capable of doing work because of its position (being above the floor), we say that it has some potential energy. The word potential means 'possible but not yet realized,' or 'the inherent capacity for doing something.' Indeed, by raising your object to a certain position, you gave that object the capability to do work but the work is only being done when you release the object.

Now, drop the object to a table instead of the floor. You will see that the object falling from its previous position will do less work. The reason is that its position relative to the table is not as high than relative to the floor. Therefore, we must note that the potential energy is always determined with respect to a given reference position. The reference position must be defined before we can determine the potential energy whose value is equal to the amount of work we have to apply to the object when we bring it from the reference position to the given position.

What happens to the potential energy if you eliminate the object? Can a non-existing object have any energy? Clearly not. There is no potential energy if there is no object. But if you retrieve the object from its hiding place and put it back to the same position where it was before, it will have the same potential energy as before. We conclude that there is something at that position that creates a potential energy when you put an object at that position. That 'something' is called the potential at that particular position. Do not forget that the potential is also dependent on the choice of the reference position. The potential at a certain height will be smaller with reference to a table than with respect to the floor.

It is convenient to characterize the potential as the potential energy of an object of unit mass. Its value is equal to the amount of work we have to apply to the object of unit mass when we bring it from the reference position to the given position. Then we can easily express the potential energy (W) of any object at that particular position by multiplying the potential at that position (P) with the mass (m) of the object: W = P x m.

Imagine now that a charge (Q) is our object. It is resting comfortably at a certain reference position. Let us bring that charge to a new position in space. We have to apply work to do that because of the forces acting on our charge from other charges around it. These are electric forces rather than forces of gravity. The charge will have a certain amount of potential energy at its new position because it can do work when it is released from that position and goes back to the reference position. The reference position must be defined before we can determine the potential energy whose value is equal to the amount of work we have to apply to the charge when we bring it from the reference position to the new position.

There is no potential energy if there is no charge. But if you put the charge back to the same position, it will have the same potential energy as before. We conclude again that there is a potential at that particular position. Do not forget that the potential is dependent on the reference position. Like the altitude of a geographical location is defined with reference to some common altitude (e. g., sea level), potential is also not an absolute but a relative quantity.

We will characterize the potential as the potential energy of a unit positive charge of 1 coulomb. Its value is equal to the amount of work we have to apply to the unit positive charge when we bring it from the reference position to the given position. Then we can easily express the potential energy (W) of any charge at that particular position by simply multiplying the electric potential at that position (u) by the charge: W = u x Q.

If you are still with me, then it is very easy for us to define voltage. Voltage is simply the potential difference between two points in space, i.e., the amount of work we have to apply to the unit positive charge when we bring it from the first point to the second one. If the potential of the first point is u(1) and the potential of the second point is u(2) and they are both defined with respect to the reference point whose potential is u(0), then the voltage is equal to V = [u(1) - u(0)] - [u(2) - u(0)] = u(1) - u(2). We conclude that the voltage does not depend on the choice of the reference point. Therefore, it is convenient to choose the potential of the reference point as u(0) = 0.

Please note that all this is true only in case of so-called conservative fields where the potential energy (and thus the potential) is independent of the path along which we bring the object (charge) from the reference position to the given position. This is the case for simple electric circuits but we will see later (Faraday's law) that in the general case of fields changing in time voltage has a more sophisticated meaning.

The unit of voltage is 1 joule/coulomb which is called 1 volt (V).Can you explain what 1 volt is in simple physical terms?. If you can, then you understand what voltage is. Congratulations!

Answer 10

electrical currents stored within something

Answer 11

it's the number of coulombs in a farad.

V= C/F

F is farads (capacitance)