Geek Notes: Electronic Water

For most people, me included, find it difficult to intuit electrical behavior. I spent time trying to find analogies to the real world. I'd considered a "water-based" system to emulate electron flow. Voltage, Current, Power, Resistors and simple Diodes seemed simple. Capacitors and Transformers left me stumped. My understanding of Transistors was rather weak at the time, yet I still saw the analogy to a "water-based" system would be strained at best. I evenually come to the conclusion that the only real analogy to electron flow was electron flow.

While researching an earlier Geek Notes entry I came across a term that was new to me; The "Hydraulic Analogy" of Electricity in the Wikipedia. After a review I see I simply wasn't creative enough to come up with appropriate analogies. I'm not going to try and describe the system in detail here (see the Wikipedia link). It's far from perfect, but I find it helpful.