Video Transcript
The current in a circuit is 2.5
amps. How many coulombs of charge pass
through the circuit in 35 minutes?
Current is a measurement of the
amount of charge from a flow of electrons in a system each second. The ampere is the SI unit for
current. It is equivalent to the flow of one
coulomb of charge per second. So, the current in this problem,
2.5 amps, means that 2.5 coulombs of charge flow in the circuit per second.
The question asked us to determine
the total charge that flows in the circuit in a certain amount of time, which we can
calculate using this equation, where 𝑄 is the total charge, 𝐼 is the current, and
𝑡 is the time, measured in seconds. So, let’s go ahead and solve this
problem.
The current is 2.5 amps, or
equivalently 2.5 coulombs per second. The time given in the problem is 35
minutes. But we need to express the time in
seconds when we use this formula. We can convert from minutes to
seconds if we multiply by 60 because there are 60 seconds in one minute. This gives us 2100 seconds, which
we can plug into our equation. The seconds cancel, and we get an
answer of 5250 coulombs when we perform the calculation.
So, in a circuit with a current of
2.5 amps, 5250 coulombs of charge pass through the circuit in 35 minutes.
