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Originally Posted by Potironette
Voltage is either the work it takes or would take to move one coulomb from one place to another.
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No, it's the work it would take to move the coulomb upstream, or the work the coulomb can do while moving downstream.
Imagine a weight. Pick it up off the ground; you put work into the weight to lift it against the gravitational field. You've charged the battery.
But if you tie the weight to a rope on a pulley and let go of it, then that weight can itself DO work to lift up something on the other end of the rope. How MUCH work can it do? Disregarding friction in the rope and pulley, EXACTLY the same amount of work it took to lift it up that high. You've discharged the battery and used it to do something.
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Work is a convenient thing that relates force and distance to each other.
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Work measures a change in energy. Applying a force over a distance is one way to get a change in energy, but it's not the only way -- you are now learning about another way using electricity. Heat is another way.
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Hence, work in voltage is how much force and distance it takes to reach a certain point in space.
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Voltage measures change in energy (that is, work) per unit charge. Equivalently, for each volt of potential, each coulomb of charge that passes through the circuit can do a joule of work.