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Wire Resistance
Name: Laura M
Status: student
Age: 15
Location: N/A
Country: N/A
Date: 1999
Question:
I am doing a physics investigation about the resistance
of a wire, i personally am investigating how the width (SWG) of a wire
affects the resistance of a wire! Can you help me?? i need to include
as much scientific references and knowledge as possible!
Replies:
The resistance is directly proportional to the length and inversely
proportional to the area (which is proportional to the width).
H. Myron
Hello,
There is plenty of information on this. Have you visited your library? Any
book on basic electricity would have this topic.
The essence of this problem is this: the resistance you measure across a
wire is: Resistance = material resistively x length of the wire/cross
sectional area of the wire.
You can change any of the variables on the right hand side of this equation
(by using different wires materials (aluminum, copper, etc.), different
wire lengths, and different wire thickness). In fact, you can estimate
material resistively by making a resistance measurement of a wire.
This makes a great science project but I encourage you to visit your
library and get some books on it and you will find more detailed
information as well as some guidance on how to carry out the experiments.
You should be able to do your experiment using batteries. If you need
other power sources, talk to your teacher first because safety should be
the top priority for engineers and scientist.
Good luck
AK
Dr. Ali Khounsary
Advanced Photon Source
Argonne National Laboratory
Probably I shouldn't tell you the answer to this one, because the
important thing is not the answer but the investigation. You can get
all you need to know by asking yourself what would be the resistance of
two wires in parallel, and what would be the width of a single wire
with the same resistance. If wires mystify you, think about hoses
stuffed with cotton.
Tim Mooney
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Update: June 2012
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