Electricity

A DC circuit, or direct current circuit, is a path for which a flow of charge passes.  It usually consists of a source and a load.  The source provides energy for the charged flow to carry to the load (a light bulb or motor, etc.) and back to the negative end of the source.  It also needs to be in a closed path to be a circuit.

This light bulb is in series.  The current in this is pretty simple.  The flow of charge exits the positive end of the source, the battery, and makes its way to the light bulb.  It then goes back to the negative end of the battery.  Since the bulb is in series, the current will stay the same throughout the whole thing.  Since there is only one bulb, the voltage will be the current in amperes multiplied by the resistance of the bulb in ohms.

These bulbs are in parallel.  This is different from series because the current acts different.  There is more amperes of current in the bulb closest to the battery than the one above.  Also unlike series the voltage between the two bulbs remains the same.  This is because the potential difference for light bulbs in parallel are the same.  This is a very interesting circuit.

This circuit is a complex of two light bulbs ins parallel and one in series.  As you can see in the picture above, the bulb in series is brighter than the ones in parallel, which have the same brightness.  This is because the voltage of the bulb in series is greater than the ones in parallel.  The bulbs in parallel however still have the same voltage.  The current through this kind of circuit is strange in that each bulb will have its own separate current.

waves and optics reflection

What I learned about waves and optics is basically what a wave is.  A wave is a disturbance that moves through a medium either longitudinal or transversal style.  I also learned the different parts of a wave like the wavelength(distance between two crests) and the amplitude(height of the crest).  What I learned about optics is concave and convex lenses.  I had no idea how those worked and how they made things far and near.
What I found difficult about what we studied was just about everything.  Everything we studied gave me trouble this unit but I found with some hard work, and getting help, I was able to at least loosely grasp the concepts.  If I had to choose one thing that was the hardest I would say lenses because it took me a long time to understand how the lenses affected light that passed through them.
My problem solving skills in this unit definitely became more profound.  I realized that if I kept working on a problem and applied what I had learned in class, many problems I found hard would become simple.  This was a major help to my problem solving skills.