The hydraulic analogy always sort of confused me because, like, fluid mechanics are real complicated. So, I always had this gut feeling question of like, can we actually end up with a hydraulic analogy that is exactly as complicated and electricity and magnetism? If we push the analogy beyond what is intended?
Is it an analogy or are both models expressions of some underlying model of potentials and flows, and we happen to have more hands-on experience with water?
Yeah. As I mentioned in another comment, as someone who studied Civil Engineering (ages ago) maybe most EEs never learn enough hydraulics to know the analogy probably goes further than they realize - ie much further than just kids level stuff.
Voltage drops across components or look a like head drops across pipe fittings. Losses along a pipe are similar to wires. Head and flow rate are very similar to voltage and current across multiple paths. Kirchoff can apply to both etc.
Many of the quantities have direct parallels and derive from each other in similar ways.
Obviously there are limits. But my middling DC circuit knowledge helped a lot when learning hydraulics from a mathematical engineering perspective.