Kirchhoff's laws deal with the conservation of energy and conservation of charge when applied to electrical circuits. Although named after Gustav Robert Kirchhoff, they are often also wrongly called Kirchoff's Laws.
Kirchhoff's first law, or Kirchhoff's current law was described by Kirchhoff in 1854.
The principle of conservation of electric charge implies that:
- At any point in an electrical circuit, the sum of currents flowing towards that point is equal to the sum of currents flowing away from that point.
Kirchhoff's second law:
- The principle of conservation of energy implies that the directed sum of the electrical potential differences around a circuit must sum to zero. Otherwise, it would be possible to build a perpetual motion machine that passed a current in a circle around the circuit.
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