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PROFESSOR: So today I want to
start a new topic, circuits.
No, that's good.
That's good.
Circuits are good.
AUDIENCE: Yay.
PROFESSOR: Thank
you, thank you.
Much better.
So just to provide some
perspective, I want to remind
you where we are, how we got
here, and where we're going.
So at the beginning of the
course, we promised that there
were several intellectual
themes that
we would talk about.
Probably the most important
one there is
designing complex systems.
That's what we're
really about.
We would like you to
be able to make
very complicated systems.
How do you think about parts?
How do you think about
connecting them?
How do you think about things
when you want to make
something that's very
complicated?
Part of that is modeling.
We just finished a module
on modeling.
So in order to make a complex
system, we'd like to be able
to predict how it will behave
before we completely build it.
Sometimes it's impossible
to build the
entire system before.
Sometimes it's impossible
to build prototypes.
Sometimes you're stuck with
going with the design at
launch, and figuring
out how it works.
In those cases in specific, it's
very important to be able
to model it, to have some
confidence that the thing's
going to work.
We're going to talk about
augmenting physical systems
with computation.
That's the module we're
about to begin.
And we'll conclude by talking
about how to build systems
that are robust to change.
So we started with the idea
of, how do you make
complicated systems?
And we introduced this notion
of primitives, combination,
abstraction, and pattern in
terms of software engineering.
We did that because that's the
simplest possible way of
getting started.
It provided a very good
illustration of PCAP at the
low level by thinking about
Python, by thinking about the
primitive structures that Python
gives you, how those
can be combined, how you can
abstract, how you can
recognize patterns.
But then we also built a higher
level abstraction,
which was the state
machine idea.
There the idea was you didn't
have to have state machines in
order to build the brain for a
robot, but it actually turns
out to be easy if you
do because there's
a modularity there.
You can figure out if each part
works independent of the
other parts.
And then you can be pretty sure
when you put it together
the whole thing's
going to work.
So that was kind of our
introduction to
this notion of PCAP.
Then we went on to think about
signals and systems.
And that was kind of our
introduction to modeling.
How do you make a model
of something
that predicts behavior?
So we transitioned from thinking
about, how do you
structure a design to how do
you think about behavior.
Today we're going to start
to think about circuits.
Circuits are really going to a
more primitive physical layer.
How do you think about actually
making a device?
So the device that we'll think
about is a thing to augment
the capabilities --
the sensor capabilities
of the robot.
We'll think about making a
light tracking system.
And the idea is going to be
that you'll build a head.
The head has a neck, so you'll
have to control the neck.
The head has eyes.
It will mount on top of the
robot, and that'll let you
drive the robot around
looking for light.
And you'll do that by
designing a circuit.
So that's kind of the game plan
for the next three weeks.
So today, what I want to do
is introduce the notion of
circuits, introduce
the theory for how
we think about circuits.
And then in the two labs this
week, the idea will be to
become familiar with the
practice of circuits.
How do you actually
build something?
How do you actually make
something work?
So today's the theory.
So the theory, the idea in
circuits is to think about a
physical system as the
interconnection of parts and
rules that connect them.
In fact, the rules fall
into two categories.
We're going to think about the
currents that go through parts
and the voltage that develops
across parts.
And we'll see that there's a
way of thinking about the
behavior of the entire circuit
that integrates all of those
three pieces.
How does the part work?
How do the currents that go
through the part work?
And how do the voltages
that are produced
across the part --
how do they work?
So I'll just start with two
very simple examples.
The first is the most trivial
example you can think about.
You can think about a flashlight
as a circuit.
You close the switch,
current flows.
Very simple idea.
We will make a model of that
that looks like this.
We'll think about the battery
being a source.
In this case, a voltage
source.
We'll think about the light
bulb being a resistor.
We'll have two parts.
We'll have to know the
current-voltage relationships
for both of the parts.
And we'll have to know the
ramifications for those
currents and voltages when
you put them together.
Very, very simple.
The other simple example that
I want to illustrate is this
idea of a leaky tank.
Here the idea that I want to get
across is that the circuit
idea is quite general.
When we talk about circuits,
we almost always talk about
electronic circuits.
But the theory is by no means
limited to electronics.
So for example, if we think
about a leaky tank, we think
about a pipe spewing water
into a reservoir.
Maybe that's the Cambridge
Reservoir.
Maybe that's the water coming
out of the Woburn Reservoir.
Maybe that's the demand put on
by the Cambridge people trying
to take showers in
the morning --
I don't know.
So we think about flow
into a tank, a
reservoir, and flow out.
And we can make a model for that
in terms of a circuit.
In the circuit there
are through
variables and across variables.
In an electronic circuit, the
through variable is current.
Here the through variable
is the flow rate.
So it's the flow of water in
and the flow of water out,
represented here
by these things
that look like currents.
And the across variable for an
electronic device is voltage.
The across variable for this
kind of a fluidic device, the
across variable is pressure.
So we think as this thing gets
ahead of that thing, as
there's more stuff coming in
than going out, the height
goes up and the pressure
builds.
Same idea.
So the point is that we'll
develop the theory for
circuits in terms
of electronics.
But you should keep in the back
of your mind that it's a
lot more general idea than
just electronics.
In fact, there are two
completely distinct reasons
why we even bother
with circuits.
One is that they're very
important to physical systems.
If you're designing a power
network, of course you have to
think about the way the power
network, the power grid works
as a circuit.
That's obvious.
In electronics, of course, if
you're going to build a cell
phone, you have to know how
the parts interconnect
electronically.
That's obvious.
But probably the biggest use for
circuits these days is not
those applications, although
those are very important.
Circuits are also used
as models of things.
So many models for complex
behaviors are in
fact circuit models.
So in terms of electronics, the
idea is that we want to
get on top of electronics.
We want to understand how
circuits work, so we can
understand things like that.
If you look at how complex
processors have got over my
professional life, we start with
my professional life down
at about 1,000 transistors
per processor.
And today, we're up at
about a billion.
That's enormous.
Even in the stone ages when we
were designing things that had
a thousand parts, we still had
trouble thinking about those
thousands parts all at once.
We still need PCAP.
We still needed ways of
combining the activities of
many things into a conceptual
unit that was bigger.
Here, it's just impossible
if you don't have that.
So that's one of the reasons
we study circuits.
And the other reason is here.
So here I'm showing a
model for the way
a nerve cell works.
This model is taken
from 6.021.
The idea, this comes from the
study of the Hodgkin-Huxley
model for neural conduction,
arguably the most successful
mathematical theory
in biophysics.
Which explains the completely
non-trivial relationship
between how the parts from
biology works and the behavior
in terms of propagated action
potentials works.
So the idea is that we
understand how this biological
system works because
we think about it
in terms of a circuit.
That's the only successful way
we have to think about that.
So what I want to do then is
spend today figuring out
circuits At the very most
primitive level.
The level that I'm going to
talk about in terms of
circuits is roughly analogous
to the level that we talked
about with Python when we were
thinking about how Python
provides utilities for
primitives, combinations,
abstractions, and patterns.
So I'm going to start at the
very lowest level and think
about, what are the basic
primitives, the smallest units
we'll ever think about
in terms of circuits?
And what are the rules by
which we combine them?
So I'll start with the very
simplest ideas, the very
simplest elements.
We will oversimplify things
and think about the very
simplest kind of electronic
elements as resistors that
obey Ohm's Law, V equals iR.
Voltage sources, things that
maintain a constant voltage
regardless of what you do.
And current sources, things
that maintain a constant
current regardless
of what you do.
These things are, as I said,
analogous to the primitive
things that we looked
at in Python.
They're also analogous to the
primitive things that we
looked at in system functions.
Can somebody think of, when
we were doing difference
equations, what were the
primitives that we
started with --
when we started to study
difference equations?
What's the most primitive
elements
that we thought about?
AUDIENCE: Delay.
PROFESSOR: Delay, yeah.
So we thought about
things like--
so we had delay.
Anything else?
AUDIENCE: Gain.
PROFESSOR: Gain.
Anything else?
Add.
So we had exactly three
primitives.
And we got pretty far with
those three primitives.
We learned the rules for
interconnection.
We didn't really make a
big deal out of it.
We didn't formalize it, but the
rules for interconnection
were something like
every node has to
have exactly one generator.
You can't connect the
output of this to
this, that's illegal.
Every node has to
have one source.
And every node can source
lots of inputs.
That was kind of the rules
of the interconnect.
The interconnects here will be a
little bit more complicated.
So those are the elements
that we'll think about.
And the first step's going to be
to think about, how do they
interconnect?
The simplest possible
interconnections are trivial.
In the case of the battery, you
hook up the voltage source
to the resistor.
The voltage source makes
the voltage across
this resistor 1 Volt.
If we say the resistor is 1
Ohm, then there's 1 Amp
current period.
Done.
Easy.
Similarly, if we were to hook
up the resistor to a current
source, we would get something
equally easy.
Except now the current source
would guarantee that the
current through the resistor
is an amp.
Therefore, the voltage across
the resistor, by Ohm's law,
would be a Volt.
So we would end up with the same
solution for a completely
different reason.
Here the voltage
is constrained.
Here the current's
constrained.
Just to make sure everybody's
with me, figure out, what's
the current i that goes
through this resistor?
Slightly more complicated
system.
Take 20 seconds, talk to your
neighbor, figure out a number
between (1) and (5).
OK, so what's the answer?
Everybody raise your hand with
a number (1) through (5).
Come on, everybody vote.
Come on.
You can blame it on your
neighbor, that's the rules.
You talk to your neighbor,
then you can blame dumb
answers on your neighbor.
OK, about 80% correct I'd say.
So how do you think
about this?
What's going to be
the current?
How would you calculate
the current?
What do I do first?
Shout.
If you shout, and especially
if my head's turned away I
don't know who you are.
AUDIENCE: Kirchhoff's law.
PROFESSOR: Kirchoff's
law, wonderful.
Which one?
There's two of them.
AUDIENCE: [UNINTELLIGIBLE].
PROFESSOR: [UNINTELLIGIBLE].
What loop do you want to use?
AUDIENCE: Left.
PROFESSOR: Left side.
So if we use the left side loop,
we would conclude that
there's a volt across
the resistor.
So the current would be?
AUDIENCE: 1 Amp.
PROFESSOR: An amp.
Where's the current come from?
AUDIENCE: The voltage.
PROFESSOR: The voltage source
just like before.
So not quite.
So the voltage source
establishes this
voltage would be 1.
That makes this current be 1.
That would be consistent with
the current coming out of
here, except we have to also
think about that 1 Amp source.
So the question is, what's
does the 1 Amp source do?
Nothing?
It's just there sort of
for decoration or for
[UNINTELLIGIBLE] so that we
can make an interesting
question to ask in lecture?
Maybe.
So where's the current?
Where's the 1 Amp that
goes through the
resistor come from?
AUDIENCE: [UNINTELLIGIBLE]
on the right.
PROFESSOR: It comes
from the right.
It comes from the current
over here.
So the idea is that if this
current, ignore the voltage
over here for the moment.
If this current flowed through
the resistor, then you'd have
1 Amp going through there, and
you'd have 1 Volt generated by
that current which just happens
to be exactly the
right voltage to match
the voltage
from the voltage source.
So if you think about this, the
voltage guarantees that
this is 1 Volt, but so
does the current.
In order to simultaneously
satisfy everything, all you
need to do is have all of this
current go around and come
down through that resistor.
That will generate the volt, so
there's no propensity for
more current to flow out of the
source because the source
is 1 Volt and it's facing a
circuit that's already 1 Volt.
So the idea was to try to give
you something that's
relatively simple that you can
think through on your own, but
not trivial.
So the answer was 1 Amp.
But the 1 Amp was not for
the trivial reason.
The 1 Amp is because the current
from the right flows
through the resistor and
makes the voltage be 1.
So the right answer is 1.
But for the reason that
you might not
have originally thought.
But more importantly, I wanted
to use that as a motivation
for thinking about, how do we
think about bigger circuits?
So when the simple circuit,
like two parts, it's no
problem figuring out what the
answer's going to be.
But when the circuit has even
three parts, it may require
more thinking.
And you may want to have a
more structured way of
thinking about the solution.
Yes?
AUDIENCE: What would have
occurred if the current
provider on the right
side was 2 Amps?
PROFESSOR: Great question.
Had this been 2 Amps, you can't
violate this voltage.
So that would have
been 1 Volt.
So that would have been 1 Amp
through the resistor.
So then you're left with the
problem with this guy's
pushing 2 and that guy's
only eating 1.
But the rules for the voltage
source say eat or source
however much current is
necessary in order to make the
voltage equal to 1.
So the excess amp goes through
the voltage source.
So the voltage source is, in
fact, being supplied power
rather than supplying
power itself.
Had this been 2 Amps, some of
the power from this source
would have gone into
the resistor.
And some of the power from
this source would have
actually gone into the
voltage source.
So if the voltage source were,
for example, a model for a
rechargeable battery,
that rechargeable
battery would be charging.
Does that make sense?
So if there had been a mismatch
in the conditions,
you still have to satisfy all
the relationships from all of
the sources.
AUDIENCE: What if the
voltage was larger?
PROFESSOR: The same thing
would have happened.
Except now the flowing
current would be in
the opposite direction.
Let's say that if the voltage
here had been 2 Volts, then
the voltage would have required
that there is 2 Amps
flowing here.
1 Amp would come from here,
but another Amp
would come from here.
This voltage source will supply
whatever current is
necessary to make its
voltage law real.
Ok.
In fact, what we'll do now is
turn toward a discussion of
more complicated systems that
will let you go back and in
retrospect, analyze all those
cases that we just did.
And you'll be able to see
trivially how that has to be
the right answer.
So what I want to do now is
generate a formal structure
for how you would
solve circuits.
Yes?
AUDIENCE: So did we know of
anything that could generate a
current without generating a
voltage, like in real life?
PROFESSOR: Can anything generate
a current without
generating a voltage?
That's a tricky question.
If you think about something as
generating a current, then
the voltage is not necessarily
determined by that part.
So that's kind of illustrated
here.
If this guy is generating a
current, this guy is not
actually the element that is
controlling its own voltage.
In general, if you want to speak
simultaneously about the
current and voltage across the
device, you have to know what
it was connected to.
Each part--
we'll get to this in a moment
in case some of you are
worried about launching ahead.
We will cover this.
This is very good motivation for
figuring out what's going
to happen in the next
three slides.
So each part gets to tell you
one relationship between
voltage and current.
Generally speaking, that's not
enough to solve for voltage
and current.
Voltage and current is
like two unknowns.
Each element relationship
is one equation.
So the current source gets to
say current equals x, current
equals 1 Amp.
It doesn't get to tell you
what the voltage is.
So being a little more physical
to try to address
your question more physically,
there are processes that can
be extremely well modeled
as current generators.
In fact, many electronic
semiconductor parts, like
transistors, work more like
a current source than like
anything else.
So there are devices that behave
as though they were
current sources, but they don't
simultaneously get to
tell you what is their current
and what is their voltage.
They only get to tell you
what is their current.
So let's think about now, if
you had a more complicated
system, how could you
systematically go about
finding the solution?
As was mentioned earlier,
there's something called
Kirchhoff's law.
And in fact, there's
two of them.
Kirchhoff's voltage law and
Kirchhoff's current law.
Kirchhoff's voltage law, in its
most elementary form, says
that if you trace the path
around any closed path in a
circuit, regardless of
what the path is--
every closed path--
the sum of the voltages going
around that closed path is 0.
So for example in this
circuit, the red path
illustrates one closed path
through the circuit.
It goes up through the voltage
source, down through this
resistor, and then down
through that resistor.
Kirchhoff's voltage law says the
sum of the voltages around
that loop is 0.
That's written mathematically
here, minus v1 for here, plus
v2 for here, plus v4
for here is 0.
OK, where do the signs
come from?
The signs came from the
reference directions that we
assigned arbitrarily
to the elements.
Before I ever do a circuits
question, I always assign a
reference direction.
Every voltage has a
positive terminal
and a negative terminal.
And I must be consistent in
order to apply these rules.
These rules only work if I
declare a reference direction
and stick with it.
If midway through a problem
I flip it, I'll
get the wrong answer.
So the minus sign has to do with
the fact that as I trace
this path, I enter the minus
part of this guy, but the plus
part of that guy and that guy.
So the sign of v1 is negated
relative to the others.
A different way to think about
that is here, we can think
that v1 is the sum
of v2 and v4.
That's sometimes more intuitive
because if you
started here, going through
this path you would end up
with a voltage that is v1 higher
than where you started.
Whereas starting here, you would
end up with a voltage
here that's v4 higher than
where you started.
And then by the time you got to
here, it would be v2 plus
v4 higher than where
you started.
You start one place and on one
route, you end up v1 higher.
And in the other route, you
get v4 plus v2 higher.
So it must be the case that v1
is the same as v2 plus v4.
Those are absolutely
equivalent ways of
thinking about it.
So those laws are equivalent.
If you think about it
a path, you think
about some of the paths--
no.
The path coinciding with the
negative direction of some of
the elements and the positive
direction of others.
OK, how many other
paths are there?
Take 20 seconds, talk
to your neighbor.
Figure out all of the
possible paths for
which KVL has to apply.
OK, so everybody raise your
hand and show a number of
fingers equal to the number
of KVL equations less two.
Oh, very good.
Virtually 100% correct.
Why do you all say (5)?
Which is to say 7.
Why do you all say 7?
So there's 3 obvious ones.
I was expecting a
couple of 3's.
This was supposed to be--
OK, yeah, I do plot
against you.
I was expecting some 3's.
So there's 3 obvious paths
that are analogous to the
first one we looked at.
If I call the first path A, then
there's B and C which are
the excursions around here.
And you can write the equations
just the same.
They each involve
three voltages.
And they each go through, some
starting at the negative side
and some starting at
the positive side.
So those are in some sense,
the obvious ones.
But there are others too.
So one way to think about it,
what I'd like you to do is
enumerate all the paths
through the circuit.
I should have said all the paths
through the circuit that
go through each element
one or fewer times.
I don't want you to go through
the same element twice.
So here's another path that
would go through elements at
most one time.
So up through here, over through
here, which didn't go
through any elements.
Down through that element,
across that, down through
here, et cetera.
And you get an equation
for that.
Here's another.
Here's another.
Here's another.
And if you try to think about a
general rule, a general rule
is something like, how many of
those panels can you make and
piece together where the loop
goes through the perimeter?
You're not allowed to go through
an inner place because
if you went through an inner
node, you'd have to
go through it twice.
If you wanted the path to go
through an inner element,
you'd have to go through
that element twice.
So in fact, the answer is 7.
There are 7 different paths
according to Kirchhoff's
voltage law, all of which the
sum of the voltages around
those paths has to be 0.
The problem is, of course, that
those equations are not
all linearly independent.
So if you just had a general
purpose equation solver-- and
by the way, we'll write
one of those in week
8 for solving circuits.
If you just passed those 7
equations into a general
purpose equation solver, it
would tell you there's
something awry with your
equations because they're not
linearly independent.
So you can, however, think about
linearly independent in
particularly simple cases.
This network is a particular
kind of network that we call a
planar network.
A planar network is one that I
can draw on a sheet of paper
without crossing wires.
So I can draw this network
without crossing wires.
I'll call it planar.
And it turns out that
Kirchhoff's voltage laws for
the innermost loops are always
independent of each other.
That's kind of obvious because
as you go to a --
so each loop contains at least
one element that some other
loop didn't have.
So that's kind of the reasoning
for why it works.
So if you think about this
particular loop, which we
included in the 7, you can think
about that as being the
sum of the loops this way, the
A loop and the B loop.
Because if you write KVL for the
A loop and KVL for the B
loop and add them, you end up
deriving KVL for the more
complicated path.
And if you think about what's
going on, it's not anything
terribly magical.
This path is the same as the A
path added to that path, where
I went through this element down
when I did the A path and
up when I did the B path.
So those parts canceled out.
That was the rule that I was
talking about how I don't
really want to go through the
same element twice when I'm
applying KVL.
So the idea then is that there's
a systematic way, an
easy way to figure out
all the KVL loops.
You just think about
all the possible
paths through the circuit.
You do have to worry about
linearly independent.
In the case of planar networks,
that's pretty
straightforward.
Planar networks, you can always
figure out the linearly
independent KVL equations by
looking at the smallest
possible loops.
The loops with small area.
OK, so that's half of it.
That's KVL.
The other Kirchhoff's law is
KCL, Kirchhoff's Current Law.
There we are thinking of
the flow of current.
So the flow of current is
analogous to the flow of
incompressible fluid.
Water, for example.
If you trace the amount of water
that flows through a
pipe that goes into a Y, then
the sum of the flows out has
to equal the flow in.
If that weren't true, the water
would be building up.
So we think about pipes as
transporting the flow of water
without allowing it to
build up anywhere.
That's precisely how we
think about wires
in electrical circuits.
The wires allow the transport
of electrons but don't allow
the buildup of electrons.
OK, do electrons build up?
Sure.
But in our idealized world, we
say they don't build up in the
wires, they build
up in a part.
And we'll have a special
part that allows the
electrons to build up.
So we're not excluding the
possibility that they build
up, we're just saying that in
this formalism, we don't allow
the electrons to build
up in the wires.
So for the purpose of the wires,
current in is equal to
the current out.
The net current in is 0.
So we will think then, about
the circuit having nodes.
The nodes are the places where
more than one element meets,
two or more elements meet.
And we will apply KCL
at each node.
So for example, in this simple
circuit where I would have
three parts connected in what
we would call parallel, they
share a node at the
top and they share
a node at the bottom.
So even though it looks like
there's multiple interconnects
up here, we say that's
one node.
And we would say that the sum of
the currents into the node
is equal to the sum of
the currents out.
So if I lab all of the possible
currents that come
out of that node, I would
have i1, i2, i3.
i1 goes through the first
one, the second one
and the third one.
And so I would conclude from
Kirchhoff's current law that
the sum of i1, i2,
and i3 is 0.
OK.
Easy, right?
As I said, we're going to make
an abstraction where the
electrons don't build
up in the wires.
They don't even build
up in the parts.
They do get stored
in the parts.
That's a little confusing,
we'll come back to that.
If they don't build up in the
parts, then the current that
goes in this leg has to
come out that leg.
If that's true, then i1 is i4,
i2 is i5, i3 is i6, and we end
up with another equation down
here, which turns out to be
precisely the same as
the one at the top.
Everybody's happy with that?
So we're thinking about this
just the way we would think
about water flow.
If there's water flow into a
part, it better be coming out.
If there's water flow in a pipe,
the water that goes into
the pipe better come out
of the pipe someplace.
So here is an arbitrary network
made out of four parts.
How many linearly independent
KCL equations are there?
So how many linearly independent
KCL equations are
in that network?
Everyone raise your hand, some
number of KCL equations.
OK, I'm seeing a
bigger variety.
I see (1)'s, (2)'s, and (3)'s.
I don't see any (4)'s.
That's probably good.
So how do you think about the
number of linearly independent
KCL equations?
So the first thing to do
is to label things.
So you have to have reference
directions before you can sort
of think about things.
So we have four elements.
We would be expecting to see
four element currents.
The same current that goes
into an element has
to come out of it.
So there's element current
1, 2, 3, and 4.
There are three nodes,
so we might be
expecting three KCL equations.
Here's one node from which you
would conclude that the sum of
i1 and i2 better be 0.
Here's a node from which you
would conclude that the
current in i2 better
be i3 plus i4.
And here is a node from which
you would conclude that i1
plus i3 plus i4 is 0.
So I can write one KCL equation
for every node,
that's not surprising.
But if you look at those
equations, you'll see that
they're not linearly
independent.
In fact, if you solve
this one for i2--
it's already solved for i2.
Stick that answer up here, you
get i3 plus i4 added to i1 is
0, which is just the same
as that equation.
So of those three equations,
only two of them are linearly
independent.
The answer to that
problem was (2).
And there's a pattern.
So think about the pattern in
terms of figuring out the
number of linearly independent
KCL equations that are in a
slightly more complicated
network.
So what's the answer
here, how many KCL
equations are in this network?
Wow.
Well, I'm not getting any of the
answers I would have said.
What does that mean?
Ah, I'm forgetting to add 2.
That's my problem.
OK, now I'm getting some of
the answers that I would
expect to get.
OK, got it.
I confused myself.
OK, the vast majority say (1).
How do you get that?
Which is 3.
So again, you think of how in
this circuit there are four
nodes, A, B, C, D. So we can
think about writing a KCL
equation for each one.
If we go to A, A has three
currents coming out of it --
1, 2, 3.
So the sum of those has
to be 0, et cetera.
And if you think about those
equations, they're not
linearly independent either.
If you work through the math,
you see that there's exactly
one of those equations that
you can eliminate.
So you're left with
three linearly
independent KCL equations.
And so there's a pattern
emerging here.
Somebody see the pattern?
1 minus.
Can somebody prove
the pattern?
So there's a pattern here.
The pattern is take the number
of nodes and the number of
independent KCL equations
as one less.
So the challenge is,
can you prove it?
And by the theory
of lectures--
AUDIENCE: Yes.
PROFESSOR: Yes.
And by a corollary of the theory
of lectures, the way
you would prove it is?
AUDIENCE: On the next slide.
PROFESSOR: On the next slide.
Exactly.
So how do I prove it?
Yeah?
AUDIENCE: Whenever you take
minus 1, you just add all the
[UNINTELLIGIBLE] together
[UNINTELLIGIBLE].
PROFESSOR: Yeah.
So there's something special
about the last one.
Why should there be something
special about the last one.
AUDIENCE: Because the
circuit's closed.
PROFESSOR: Because the
circuit's closed.
That's right.
So the idea is to sort
of generalize the way
we think about KCL.
So we start with a circuit.
We think about having
four nodes here.
It's certainly the case that
KCL holds for each node.
So here's KCL for that node.
But now if you think about KCL
for this node, and then add
them, that looks like
a KCL equation.
But it applies to
a super node.
Imagine the node defined by the
black box, and think about
the net currents into or
out of the black node.
This current i2, which leaves
the red node, enters the green
node, but doesn't go through
the surface of the
black node at all.
That's exactly the current
that's subtracted out when we
added the red equation to
the green equation.
Does that make sense?
So KCL says, oh, if all the
currents at a node have to sum
to 0, and if elements have the
same current coming out and
going in, then if you draw a
box around an element, what
goes into the element
is the same as what
comes out of the element.
It doesn't change the net
current through the surface.
So the generalization of the KCL
equation, KCL says the sum
of the currents into
a node is 0.
The generalization says take any
closed path in a circuit,
the sum of the currents going
across that closed path is 0.
So if we apply that rule again,
think about node 3.
If we add the result of node 3
to the black node, which was
the sum of 1 and 2, we get
the new green curve.
We get the new green equation.
And what that says is the sum
of the currents going across
the green super node--
OK, so what's going on? i1 is
coming out of it, i4 is coming
out of it, i5 is coming
out of it.
So the sum of i1, i4,
and i5 has to be 0.
Well, KCL says the sum of the
currents coming out of a
node must be 0.
The super KCL says the sum of
the currents coming out of any
closed region is also 0.
But the interesting thing about
this closed region is
that it encloses all but
one of the nodes.
That's always true.
Regardless of the system,
regardless of the circuit, you
can always draw a line that will
isolate one node from all
the others.
So what that proves is that you
can always write KCL for
this node in terms of
KCL for those nodes.
Ok.
So there's a generalization then
that says that you can
always write KCL
for every node.
They will always be linearly
dependent.
So you can always
throw away one.
So in some sense now,
we're done.
We've just finished
circuit theory.
We talked about how every
element has to have a law.
A resistor is Ohm's Law.
A voltage source says that the
voltage across the terminals
is always a constant.
A current source says that the
current through the current
source is always a constant.
So every element tells
you one law.
We know how to think
about KVL.
So we know the rule for how the
across variables behave.
What's the aggregate behavior
of all the across variables?
Well, KVL has to be satisfied
for every possible loop.
The loops don't have
to be independent.
You have to worry about whether
they're independent.
The only simple rule we came up
with-- we'll come up with
another one in a moment.
The only simple rule that we
came up with was for planar
circuits, where the innermost
loops were linearly
independent of each other.
And you have to write KCL for
all the nodes, except one.
One of them never matters.
So in some sense, we're done.
What we would do to
solve the circuit,
think about every element.
For every element assign a
voltage, a reference voltage.
For every element,
assign a current.
Make sure they go in the
right direction.
We always define currents
to go down
the potential gradient.
They always go in the directions
through the element
from the positive
to the negative.
So for every element, assign
a current and a voltage.
We have 6 elements, that's
12 unknowns.
Now we dig and we find
12 equations.
In this particular circuit, we
found those 12 equations.
There were three KCL equations,
one for each of the
inner loops.
There were three KCL equations,
one for each node
except one.
There were 5 Ohm's law
equations, one for each one of
the resistors.
There was one source equation
for the voltage source.
12 equations, 12 unknowns,
we're done.
The only problem is a
lot of equations.
It's not a very complicated
circuit.
We've only got 6 elements.
I tried to motivate this in
terms of studying networks
that had 10 to the 9 elements.
This technique is not
particularly great
at 10 to the 9.
It would probably work.
But we would probably
be interested in
finding simpler ways.
So there are simpler ways you
might imagine, and we'll
discuss two of them
just very briefly.
The dumb way that I just talked
about is what we call
primitive variables,
element variables.
If you write all the element
variables, v1, v2, v3, v4, v5
v6, all of the element currents,
i1, i2, i3, i4, i5,
i6, write all the equations,
you can solve it.
However, if you're judicious,
you can figure out a smaller
number of unknowns and a
correspondingly smaller number
of equations.
One method is called
the node method.
When we're thinking about the
individual elements, the thing
that matters is the voltage
across the element.
However, that's not
the easy way to
write the circuit equations.
A much easier way is not to tell
me the voltage across an
element, but instead tell me
the voltage associated with
each of the nodes.
If I tell you the voltage
associated with every node,
the important thing about that
way of defining the variables
is that you're guaranteed that
from those variables, you can
tell me the voltage
across every part.
So for example, in this circuit,
this voltage source--
so if I call this one ground,
we'll always have a magic node
called ground.
It is not special
in the least.
It's just the reference
voltage.
I'll come back to that.
I'll say words in a minute about
what the reference is.
We always get to declare
one node to be ground.
We get one free node.
It's a node whose voltage we
don't care about because it's
the reference for
all voltages.
It's a node whose current we
don't care about because we
get to throw away one node when
we do current equations.
So we have one special mode
called ground, about which we
don't care too much.
Except that it's the most
important node in the circuit.
Except for that, we don't
care about it.
So this guy's ground.
We think about its
voltage being 0.
Then this voltage supply
makes that node be v0.
I don't know what that is,
so I'll call it e1.
And I don't know what that
is, so I'll call it e2.
So if I tell you the voltage on
all of those nodes, ground
voltage is 0, the top voltage is
v0, the left voltage is e1,
the right voltage is e2.
From those four numbers, 0 and
3 nontrivial numbers, you can
find all of the component
voltages.
So for example, the voltage v6,
the voltage across R6 is
e2 minus e1.
The voltage v4, the voltage
across the R4
resistor is e1 minus 0.
So if I tell you all the node
voltages, you can tell me all
of the element voltages.
And in general, there's fewer
nodes than there are
components.
OK, that's great.
So instead of naming the volts
across the elements, we'll
name the voltages at the nodes
because there's fewer of them.
Then, all we need to do in the
node method is write the
minimum number of
KCL equations.
We know we only have two
unknowns, e1 and e2.
And it turns out-- and you
can prove this, but I
won't prove it today.
It turns out that you need
two KCL equations.
Two unknowns, e1, e2,
two KCL equations.
And it turns out those two KCL
equations are exactly the KCL
equations associated
with the two nodes.
So the current leaving
e1, so KCL at e1 --
well, there's a current
that goes that way.
Well, that's the voltage drop
in going from e1 to v0, e1
minus v0, divided by R2.
That's Ohm's law.
So this term represents the
current going up that leg plus
the current that goes through
this leg, which is e1
minus e2 over R6.
Plus the current going in
that leg, which is e1
minus 0 over R4.
The sum of those three
currents better be 0.
Analogously, the sum of the
currents at this node must be
0, and the equation looks
virtually the same.
Because v0 is known, so it
didn't add an unknown.
v0 was set by the voltage,
by the voltage source.
So I have two equations,
two unknowns, solved.
Done.
So rather than solving 12
equations and 12 unknowns, I
can do it with two equations
and two unknowns.
That's called the node method.
One of the most interesting
theories about circuits is
that every simplification that
you can think about for
voltage has an analogous
simplification that you can
think about in current.
That's called duality.
We won't do that because it's
kind of complicated.
But it's kind of
a cute result.
If you can think of a
simplification that works in
voltage, then there is
an analogous one, and
you can prove it.
In fact, you can formally derive
what it must have been.
This is a rule for how you can
simplify things by thinking
about voltages in aggregate.
Rather than thinking about the
element voltages, think about
the node voltages.
The analogous current law is
rather than thinking about the
currents through the elements,
the element currents, think
about loop currents.
OK, that's a little bizarre.
So we name the loop, the current
that flows in this
loop, IA, the current that flows
in this loop, IB, and
the current hat flows
in this loop, IC.
What on earth is he doing?
Well, the element voltages are
some linear combination of
those loop currents.
And in fact, the coefficients in
the linear combination are
one and minus one.
So the element current I4, the
current that flows through the
R4 resistor is the sum of
IA coming down minus IC,
which is going up.
So there's a way of thinking
about each element current as
a sum or difference of
the loop currents.
Everybody get that?
So instead of thinking about
the individual element
currents, I think about
the loop currents.
And now, I need to write
three KVL equations.
So in the node method, I named
the nodes and had to write two
KCL equations.
Here, I named the loop currents
and I have to write
three KVL equations,
one for each loop.
It's completely analogous.
If you write out a sentence,
what did you do?
I assigned a voltage to every
node, and I wrote
KCL of all the nodes.
Then if you turn the word
"current" into the word
"voltage," the word "node"
into the word "loop," you
derive this new method.
So this says that if I write KVL
at the A loop, think about
spinning around this loop, as
I go up through the voltage
source, so I go in the negative
terminal here.
So that's minus v0.
As I go down through this
resistor, I have to use Ohm's
law, so that's R2 times
the down current.
Well, the down current is
IA down minus IB up.
So I went up through here,
down through here.
Now I go down through
this one.
When I go down through that one,
according to Ohm's law,
that's R4 times the current
through that element.
That current-- well, it's
IA down and it's IC up.
So this is the KVL equation
for that loop.
I write two more of them, and I
end up with three equations
and three unknowns.
Both the node method and the
loop method resulted in a lot
fewer equations than
the primitives did.
I had 12 primitive unknowns,
6 voltages and 6 currents.
In the node method, I get the
number of independent nodes as
the number of equations and
unknowns, which is less than
the number of primitive
variables.
In the loop method, I have the
number of independent loops.
Which is again, smaller.
So the idea then is that we have
a couple of ways to think
about solving circuits.
Fundamentally, all we have are
the element relationships and
the rules for combination.
Oh, this is starting to sound
like PCAP, primitives and
combinations.
So the primitives are, how does
the element constrain the
voltages and currents?
We know three of those,
Ohm's law, voltage
source, current source.
And what are the rules
for combination?
Well, the currents add to the
node, and the voltages add
around loops.
OK, just to make sure you've
absorb all that, figure out
the current I for
this circuit.
OK, what's a good
way to start?
What should I do to start
thinking about calculating I?
OK, bad way.
Assign voltages and currents
to everything.
4 elements, that's 4 voltages,
4 currents.
That's 8 unknowns.
Find 8 equations, solve.
That'll work.
Bad way.
What's a better way?
OK, [UNINTELLIGIBLE PHRASE].
AUDIENCE:
[UNINTELLIGIBLE PHRASE].
PROFESSOR: It was on
the previous sheet.
[UNINTELLIGIBLE PHRASE].
AUDIENCE: KVL [UNINTELLIGIBLE].
PROFESSOR: KVL for where?
AUDIENCE: Loops.
PROFESSOR: Which loop?
AUDIENCE: Left loop.
PROFESSOR: So do KVL
on the left loop?
AUDIENCE: Yes.
PROFESSOR: OK, that's good.
But you have to tell me how
to assign variables.
Do you want 8 primitive
variables?
8 primitive variables are v1,
i1, v2, i2, v3, i3, v4, i4.
So that's what I mean by
primitive variables.
Or element variables is
another word for it.
What's a better way than using
element variables?
Yeah.
AUDIENCE: Create 2
loop equations.
PROFESSOR: Create 2 loop
equations, that's fantastic.
AUDIENCE: I1 for the first loop,
I2 for the second loop.
PROFESSOR: So if you do I1 going
around here, then I1 is
actually I. And if you do I2
going around here, what's I2?
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE].
PROFESSOR: So if I think about
I2 spinning around this loop,
so the sum of I1 and I2
goes through that box.
But the only current that goes
through this box is?
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE].
PROFESSOR: So the suggestion
is that I think about--
so if I have I1 here, but I know
that's I. Then I can see
immediately that since
the only current that
goes through here--
so if I have I1 and I2.
That was a very clever idea.
If you have I1 and I2, the only
current that goes through
here is I. So I1
must've been I.
The only current that
goes over here
must've been this guy.
So this must be minus 10.
So I could redo that this way.
I could say I've got
10 going that way.
That make sense?
So now I only have one unknown
which is I. So that's a very
clever way of doing it.
So what I could do
is showed here.
I have I going around one
loop and I have 10
going around that loop.
That completely specifies
all the currents.
So now all I need to
do is write KVL for
these different cases.
So if I write KVL for the left
loop, then I get going up
through here, that's minus 15,
and going down through here,
going to the right through
this guy is 3I.
Going down through this guy
is 2 times I plus 10.
Both of these are going down,
so you have to add them.
So I get one equation
and one unknown.
And when I solve it,
I get minus one.
That make sense?
There's an analogous
way you could have
done it with one node.
You could have said that the
circuit has a single node and
figured out KCL for
that one node.
KCL would be the sum of
the currents here.
There's a current that
goes that way, that
way, and that way.
And again, you end up with
1 equation and 1 unknown.
Yes?
AUDIENCE:
[UNINTELLIGIBLE PHRASE].
PROFESSOR: Correct.
If I thought about this current
going this way, it
would be minus 10.
If I flipped the direction,
then it's plus 10.
So the loop current has the
property that it's the only
current through this element.
So that has to match.
It's one of two currents that
go through this element.
AUDIENCE: You said that
everything that
[UNINTELLIGIBLE PHRASE].
PROFESSOR: This loop is
[UNINTELLIGIBLE].
Yes.
AUDIENCE: So why is the
[UNINTELLIGIBLE PHRASE].
PROFESSOR: Correct.
I want to have this
picture now.
So if I'm doing it with loops,
I have two loops.
The current through this element
is just I. The current
through this element is just
I. The current through this
element is just 10.
The current through this
element-- well, the sum of
these two currents go through
that element.
Does that make sense?
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: This loop current
is just a fraction of the
current in the whole system.
So this loop current goes
through this element and
contributes to this element.
But so does that one.
OK, if you're still confused,
you should try to get it
straightened out in one of the
software labs or the hardware
lab, or talk to me
after lecture.
But the idea is to
decompose in the
case of the node voltages.
Think about the element
voltages in terms of
differences in the
node voltages.
In the case of the loop
currents, think about the
element currents in terms of
a sum of loop currents.
OK, so the answer is minus 1
regardless of how you do it.
Ok.
The remaining thing I want to
do today is think about
abstraction.
We've talked about the
primitives, which are things
like resistors, voltage sources,
and current sources.
Means of combinations,
that's KVL and KCL.
Now we want to think
about abstraction.
And the first abstraction that
we'll talk about is, how do
you think about one element
that represents
more than one element?
This is the same thing that we
did when we thought about
linear systems, when we did
signals and systems.
We started with R's and K's and
pluses, and we made single
boxes that had lots of R's and
pluses and gains in them.
What was the name of the thing
that was inside the box?
If we combined lots of R's,
gains, and pluses into a
single box, what would we call
the thing that's in the box?
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE].
PROFESSOR: Shout again.
AUDIENCE: System function.
PROFESSOR: System function.
Right?
So we started with boxes
that only had
things like R's in them.
But eventually, we got boxes
that looked like much more
complicated things like that.
We thought about a system
function which was a
generalized box, that could have
lots of R's, or lots of
gains, or lots of
pluses in it.
And that was a way of
abstracting complicated
systems so they looked
like simple systems.
What we want to do here is the
same thing for circuits.
We want to have a single
element, a single circuit
element, that represents
many circuit elements.
And the simplest case of that
is for series in parallel
combinations of resistors.
It's very simple to think about
how if you had two Ohm's
law devices connected in series,
you could replace
those two with a single
resistor.
And the voltage-current
relationships measured at the
outside of the box would
be the same.
That's how we think about an
abstraction in circuits.
When is it that you can draw
a box around a piece of a
circuit and think about
that as one element?
The very simplest cases, the
series combination of two
resistors, same sort of thing
happens for the parallel
combination.
And that simple abstraction
makes some things very easy.
What would be the equivalent
resistance for a complicated
system like that?
Well, that's easy.
All you need to do is think
about successively reducing
the pieces.
Here I'm thinking about that
having four resistors.
I can just successively apply
series and parallel in order
to reduce that, make it
less complicated.
So I can think about combining
these two in series to get,
instead of two 1 Ohm resistors,
one 2 Ohm resistor.
Then I can think about these
two 2 Ohm resistors being
equivalently one parallel
1 Ohm resistor.
And so this whole thing looks
as though it's just 2 Ohms
from the outside world.
That's what we mean
by an abstraction.
What we're trying to do and what
we will do over the next
two weeks, is we'll think
about ways of combining
circuits so that we can reduce
the complexity this way.
Another convenient way of
thinking about reducing the
work that you need to do is to
think about common patterns
that result.
PCAP, Primitives, Combinations,
Abstractions.
So the series of parallel
idea was an abstraction.
A pattern, here's a
common pattern.
If you've got two resistors in
series, if the same current
flows through two resistors,
then there's a way of very
simply calculating the voltage
that falls across each.
So you can think about the sum
resistor, R1 plus R2 since
they're in series.
So that allows you then
to compute the
current from the voltage.
Then the voltage that falls
across this guy is by Ohm's
law, just the current
times its resistor,
which is like that.
And similarly with this one.
So you can see that some
fraction of this voltage v
occurs across the v1 terminal.
And some different fraction
appears across the v2
terminal, such that the sum of
the fractions is, of course,
v. That's what has to
happen for the two.
And there's a proportional
drop.
The bigger R1, the bigger is the
proportion of the voltage
that falls across R1.
So it's a simple way of thinking
about how voltage
drops across two resistors.
There's a completely analogous
way of thinking about how
current splits between
two resistors.
Here the result looks virtually
the same, except it
has kind of the unintuitive
property that most of the
current goes through the
resistor that is the smallest.
So you get a bigger current in
i1 in proportion to the R2.
So it works very much like the
voltage case, except that it
has this inversion in it, that
the current likes to go
through the smaller resistor.
OK, so last problem.
Using those kinds of ideas,
think about how you could
compute the voltage v0 and
determine what's the answer.
So what's the easy way to
think about this answer?
What do I do first?
AUDIENCE: Superposition.
PROFESSOR: So superposition?
That's one thing.
AUDIENCE: Simplify
[UNINTELLIGIBLE].
PROFESSOR: Simplify.
So what's a good
simplification?
Collapse?
AUDIENCE: You can put the two
[UNINTELLIGIBLE] in series and
treat them as one.
PROFESSOR: So you can treat this
as a series combination,
and you can replace the series
of 1 and 3 with a?
AUDIENCE:
[UNINTELLIGIBLE PHRASE].
AUDIENCE: 4..
PROFESSOR: 4.
So this can be replaced by
four [UNINTELLIGIBLE]
resistor.
Now what?
AUDIENCE: You can do the same
on the parallel one.
PROFESSOR: So you can replace
the parallel of the 6
and a 12 with a?
AUDIENCE: 4.
PROFESSOR: Amazing
-- with a 4.
So there's a 4 there and
there's a 4 there.
And the answer is?
AUDIENCE: It's half.
PROFESSOR: Half of whatever
it was by voltage
[UNINTELLIGIBLE] relationship.
So you think about this
becoming that.
You think about the parallel
becoming that.
You get a simple divide
by 2 voltage divider.
So the answer is 7 and 1/2,
which was the middle answer.
And so what we did today was
basically a whirlwind tour of
the theory of circuits.
And the goal for the rest of the
week is to go to the lab
and do the same sort of thing
with practical where you build
a circuit, and try to use some
of these ideas to understand
what it does.
