Skip to main content
-
-
2.1: Ohm’s Law - How Voltage, Current, and Resistance Relate
-
The first, and perhaps most important, relationship between current, voltage, and resistance is called Ohm’s Law, discovered by Georg Simon Ohm and published in his 1827 paper, The Galvanic Circuit Investigated Mathematically.
-
-
2.2: An Analogy for Ohm’s Law
-
Ohm’s Law also makes intuitive sense if you apply it to the water-and-pipe analogy. If we have a water pump that exerts pressure (voltage) to push water around a “circuit” (current) through a restriction (resistance), we can model how the three variables interrelate. If the resistance to water flow stays the same and the pump pressure increases, the flow rate must also increase.
-
-
2.3: Power in Electric Circuits
-
Power is the measure of how much work can be done in a given amount of time. Mechanical power is commonly measured (in America) in “horsepower.” Electrical power is almost always measured in “watts,” and it can be calculated by the formula P = IE. Electrical power is a product of both voltage and current, not either one separately.
-
-
2.4: Calculating Electric Power
-
Power measured in watts, symbolized by the letter “W”.
-
-
2.5: Resistors
-
Because the relationship between voltage, current, and resistance in any circuit is so regular, we can reliably control any variable in a circuit simply by controlling the other two. Perhaps the easiest variable in any circuit to control is its resistance. This can be done by changing the material, size, and shape of its conductive components (remember how the thin metal filament of a lamp created more electrical resistance than a thick wire?).
-
-
2.6: Nonlinear Conduction
-
Ohm’s Law is a simple and powerful mathematical tool for helping us analyze electric circuits, but it has limitations, and we must understand these limitations in order to properly apply it to real circuits. For most conductors, resistance is a rather stable property, largely unaffected by voltage or current. For this reason we can regard the resistance of many circuit components as a constant, with voltage and current being directly related to each other.
-
-
2.7: Circuit Wiring
-
-
-
2.8: Polarity of voltage drops
-
-
-
2.9: Computer Simulation of Electric Circuits
-
Computers can be powerful tools if used properly, especially in the realms of science and engineering. Software exists for the simulation of electric circuits by computer, and these programs can be very useful in helping circuit designers test ideas before actually building real circuits, saving much time and money.