electronics, resistors, capacitors, circuits?

Question

Why do different valued resistors and capacitors, make a difference in the function of a circuit?

Answer 1

Resistors resist current flow. The higher the value of resistor the more it will resist current flow. Capacitors store electric charge. The higher the valure of capacitor the more charge it will store.
As far as how this affects circuits is a very complicated answer. There are so many possibilities depending on what type of circuit they are used in.

Answer 2

The capacitor is typically used in a format which acts to smooth out changes in voltage; a power supply filter for example. Or it is used to cycle a voltage within a specific time period such as creating a certain frequency in radio circuits. Resistors are current limiting, and voltage setting. They stop led's from burnout, or set the correct bias voltage on transistors. Diodes rectify; take a wave signal and make it a DC level; in power supplies to turn mains into a DC supply, in radio as the detector which produces the received signal.

Answer 3

Unfortunatley you need a little bit of calculus to get a good understanding of basic circuit theory when the circuits contain capacitors and/or inductors (and if you stick with this long enough you will find that all real circuits do have capacitance and inductance whether you want it or not). If you know a little calculus you can combine this with Lapalace transforms to get the basics of circuit analysis.

Answer 4

they control the flow of electricity