Electrical Engineering ⇒ Topic : Electric Current is a Scalar Quantity

Electric Current is a Scalar Quantity

(1)

As both charge and time are scalars, electric current is a scalar quantity.

(ii) We show electric current in a wire by an an-ow to indicate the direction of flow of positive charge. But such an-ows are not vectors because they do not obey the laws of vector algebra. This point can be explained by referring to Fig. (a).The wires OA and OB carry currents of 3 A and 4 A respectively. The total current in the wire CO is 3 + 4 = 7 Air-respective of the angle between the wires OA and OB. This is not surprising because the charge is conserved so that the magnitudes of currents in wires OA and OB must add to give the magnitude of current in the wire CO.

                                                figure (a)