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It just dawned on me that "current" is exactly like the flow of water in a river, also called "current." It's already a flow of charge.



It's called the intensité (du courant) in French, which might explain the I in the equations, instead of an expected C or A.


An electric circuit is a circular channel full of water, a loop-river.

An off-switch is a wall of dirt placed across the channel.

A battery is a dam with a pump, where the pump runs just enough to maintain a 1-ft level-difference across the dam. A resistor is a narrow section in the river, where the rushing water moves fast enough to heat up. (Or maybe a resistor is a swamp full of cattails and mangroves, causing the entire length of river-loop to move slow.) Amperes is gallons-per-second. Voltage is water surface altitude measured with respect to the center of the Earth, or WRT some average water level, or WRT any chosen reference-altitude.




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