[Physics] Is potential difference the same across each branch in a parallel circuit under ALL circumstances

electric-circuitselectrical-resistanceelectricityelectromagnetismvoltage

If you place a cell with negligible internal resistance and an EMF of 5V in parallel with 2 resistors, as shown below, each resistor will have a potential difference of 5V across it.

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However, if you were to replace the rightmost resistor with another cell, this time with an EMF of 6V and a negligible internal resistance, what will be the potential difference across the resistor remaining in the middle?

How would the potential difference be the same across each branch in this case? Would it even be the same, and if not then how does this fit with Kirchhoff's second law?

Best Answer

Under all circumstances? No. If you immerse the circuit in a region with a changing magnetic field going through the circuit's loop, then Faraday's law tells you that the electric field circulation over the loop is proportional to the change in magnetic flux through the loop $$ \oint_\mathcal C \mathbf E\cdot\mathrm d\mathbf l = -\frac{\mathrm d}{\mathrm dt}\iint_\mathcal S \mathbf B\cdot \mathrm d\mathbf S, $$ where if your circuit consists only of resistive elements and cells then the integral on the left is the sum of the Ohm's-law voltages across the resistors and the cells' marked driving voltages.


In the case you posit, on the other hand, the situation is simpler in some ways. Here the Kirchhoff voltage law still holds, but what breaks is your assumptions, which for this situation are inconsistent. In particular, you can no longer say

negligible internal resistance

for either of the two cells, and you probably can't think of those resistances as linear circuit elements, either. Instead, you need to include the cells' internal resistance (however small) into the configuration, do the full Kirchhoff analysis, and then decide whether your cells are in their linear regime and whether the internal resistances are so small that removing them would not appreciably change the conclusions.

What you will find is that they're not removable, and you will likely be pushing charge through one of the batteries in reverse. Here the usual circuit abstractions break down: some voltage sources will accept this and keep their stride, but others can have nonlinear current-voltage characteristics, and many can sustain damage, from mild all the way up to catastrophic.

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