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An open circuit is a circuit with a gap that prevents current flow, while a closed circuit allows current flow. An open circuit has infinite resistance and is the opposite of a short circuit. A circuit can be opened or closed with a switch.
An open circuit is a type of electrical circuit that has some type of opening or gap along the circuit that causes current to no longer flow properly. This is in contrast to a closed loop which has been designed and implemented correctly to allow electric current to flow. It is, however, opposite to a short circuit where you establish a part of a circuit that allows current to bypass resistors and thus increase current flow through the circuit. This is because an open circuit has infinite resistance to gap or breaking, as it does not allow current to flow through the circuit.
In general, a circuit is any type of system designed to allow electric current to flow through it. It doesn’t matter whether the circuit uses direct current (DC) or alternating current (AC), although for illustration purposes DC electricity is often easier to look at. DC electricity flows in one direction through a circuit, traveling with the flow of electrons from a negative to a positive charge. A simple circuit might consist of a battery connected to the circuit at both its positive and negative poles and a resistor capable of receiving current.
Electric current flows from the negative end to the positive and is used by the resistor, typically to supply power to a part of the device. This simple circuit can be turned into an open circuit by simply creating a gap or by opening the circuit at any point. It doesn’t matter if the gap is created before the resistor or after the resistor; if the gap is created anywhere, it becomes an open circuit and the current no longer flows correctly. This is because the open circuit breaks the connection at some point and therefore current can no longer flow from negative to positive.
For mathematical purposes, the gap or opening on an open circuit is considered to have infinite resistance, as it completely shuts off the flow of electric current. This makes an open circuit the opposite of a short, which establishes an alternate path for current to flow in a circuit that avoids resistors and therefore reduces the resistance in a circuit. For purposes of illustration, an open circuit is often viewed as the opposite of a closed circuit, which simply refers to any complete circuit in which current can flow. A circuit will often be designed to be opened or closed depending on the position of a switch in the circuit, allowing a user to change the switch position and turn a device powered by the circuit on or off.
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