Kirchhoff's voltage law

Kirchhoff's circuit laws are two equalities that deal with the current and potential difference (commonly known as voltage) in the lumped element model of electrical circuits. They were first described in 1845 by German physicist Gustav Kirchhoff. This generalized the work of Georg Ohm and preceded the work of Maxwell. Widely used in electrical engineering, they are also called Kirchhoff's rules or simply Kirchhoff's laws.

Both of Kirchhoff's laws can be understood as corollaries of the Maxwell equations in the low-frequency limit. They are accurate for DC circuits, and for AC circuits at frequencies where the wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation are very large compared to the circuits.

This law is also called Kirchhoff's first law, Kirchhoff's point rule, or Kirchhoff's junction rule (or nodal rule).

The principle of conservation of electric charge implies that:

or equivalently

Recalling that current is a signed (positive or negative) quantity reflecting direction towards or away from a node, this principle can be stated as:

n is the total number of branches with currents flowing towards or away from the node.

This formula is valid for complex currents:

The law is based on the conservation of charge whereby the charge (measured in coulombs) is the product of the current (in amperes) and the time (in seconds).

A matrix version of Kirchhoff's current law is the basis of most circuit simulation software, such as SPICE. Kirchhoff's current law combined with Ohm's Law is used in nodal analysis.

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