Are these 2 resistors in parallel?
Redrawing schematics is a great way to analyze circuits, but also an exercise in why schematics are drawn in particular ways &mdash; to more clearly communicate to other engineers.







simulate this circuit &ndash; Schematic created using CircuitLab

The rearrangement above should be a little more clear. If you trace a path from one terminal of the battery to the other, you can hopefully see that there are two paths (the split occurs at the junctions on either side of R1).

Series means one-after-another current flow (like a series of events or a television serial). Parallel means that current flows through two or more components at the same time (proportional to the component values).

Just as when you measure voltage, where the value depends on your reference point, components can be series or parallel depending on what you are comparing them to:

You could say:


R2 is in series with the voltage source, or
R2 forms a series-parallel circuit with R1 and R3, or
R1 and R3 are parallel with each other, or
R1 and R3 are parallel with a voltage source and some resistance R2