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This circuit shows 2 resistors in parallel, connected to an ammeter and 2 voltmeters to show the circuit total current and the voltage across each resistor.
How do you know they are in parallel as opposed to series?
Notice how the positive wire, known as a node when connected between components, connects both the resistors simultaneously.
Compare that to a series circuit, where the positive DC connection only connects to the first resistor, and the second resistor has its positive node connected to the first resistors negative node.
Connection in parallel for resistors has some interesting behaviors that can be seen from this simulation. For instance, notice how the voltage across both R1 and R2 matches the source voltage, 10V! Now notice the total current draw compared to the current draw across R1 and R2. R1 is larger than R2, so it draws less current than R2. And if we sum the current across R1 and R2, we get the source current!
To find the total resistance of this circuit, you simply sum the inverses of the resistance values of each resistor in parallel, and invert that to get your total resistance!
Note that the total resistance will be less than that of the smallest resistor in parallel.
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