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Old 04-19-2007, 10:45 PM
BruceZ BruceZ is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2002
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Default Re: Circuit Analysis Question (Electrical Engineering majors holla)

Actually, even if you don't recognize immediately that all 5 resistors are in parallel, this should become clear once you try to solve the circuit. Since there are fewer nodes than loops, you would pick node analysis (kirchoff's current law - sum of currents leaving a node is zero). This involves writing an equation for each node at which you don't already know the voltage. At that point you would notice that there are actually ZERO nodes for which you don't already know the voltage since there are only 2 nodes all together, and both connect directly to the battery, so one has a voltage of 32 volts, and the other is at ground potential (0 volts). Zero nodes implies that all of the components have the same voltage across them, i.e. they are in parallel. So there is nothing to do as you already have all the voltages, and this means that you can solve for the current through each resistor. Since the only 2 voltages are 32 and ground, it becomes clear that each resistor is connected across the battery.
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