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Ohms Law The fundamental relationship among the three important electrical quantities current, voltage, and resistance was discovered by Georg Simon Ohm. The relationship and the unit of electrical resistance were both named for him to commemorate this contribution to physics. One statement of Ohms law is that the current through a resistor is proportional to the voltage across the resistor. In this experiment you will see if Ohms law is applicable to several different circuits using a Current Probe and a Voltage Probe. Current and voltage can be difficult to understand, because they cannot be observed directly. To clarify these terms, some people make the comparison between electrical circuits and water flowing in pipes. Here is a chart of the three electrical units we will study in this experiment. Electrical Quantity Description Unit Water Analogy Voltage or Potential Difference Current Resistance A measure of the Energy difference per unit charge between two points in a circuit. A measure of the flow of charge in a circuit. A measure of how difficult it is for current to flow in a circuit. Volt (V) Water Pressure

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Ampere (A) Ohm ( )

Amount of water flowing A measure of how difficult it is for water to flow through a pipe.

Figure 1 objectives Determine the mathematical relationship between current, potential difference, and resistance in a simple circuit. Hypothesis 1: if we create a circuit and we measure the current and voltage, then the relationship will be potential difference equals current times resistance because of Ohms Law. Compare the potential vs. current behavior of a resistor to that of a light bulb. Hypothesis 2: if we create a circuit with a light bulb and we measure the current and voltage, since a light bulb is just another kind of resistor, then by Ohms law, potential will be equal to the current times the resistance of the light bulb.
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Computer 22 MATERIALS computer Vernier Circuit Board, or Vernier computer interface wires Logger Pro clips to hold wires one Vernier Current Probe and switch one Vernier Differential Voltage Probe two resistors (about 10 and 50 ) adjustable 5 volt DC power supply light bulb (6.3 V) PRELIMINARY SEtup and QUESTIONS 1. Connect the Current Probe to Channel 1 and the Differential Voltage Probe to Channel 2 of the computer interface. 2. Open the file 22 Ohms Law in the Physics with Vernier folder. A graph of potential vs. current will be displayed. The meter displays potential and current readings. 3. With the power supply turned off, connect the power supply, 10 resistor, wires, and clips as shown in Figure 1. Take care that the positive lead from the power supply and the red terminal from the Current & Voltage Probe are connected as shown in Figure 1. Note: Attach the red connectors electrically closer to the positive side of the power supply. 4. Click . A dialog box will appear. Click to zero both sensors. This sets the zero for both probes with no current flowing and with no voltage applied. 5. Have your teacher check the arrangement of the wires before proceeding. Turn the control on the DC power supply to 0 V and then turn on the power supply. Slowly increase the voltage to 5 V. Monitor the meter in Logger Pro and describe what happens to the current through the resistor as the potential difference across the resistor changes. If the voltage doubles, what happens to the current? It decreases by half. What type of relationship do you believe exists between voltage and current? V=IR where I is current and R is resistance. PROCEDURE 1. Record the value of the resistor in the data table. 2. Make sure the power supply is set to 0 V. Click to begin data collection. Monitor the voltage and current. Click . 3. Increase the voltage on the power supply to approximately 0.5 V. Click . 4. Increase the voltage by about 0.5 V. Click . Repeat this process until you reach a voltage of 5.0 V. 5. Click and set the power supply back to 0 V. 6. Print a copy of the graph. Are the voltage and current proportional? Click the Linear Fit button, . Record the slope and y-intercept of the regression line in the data table, along with their units. 7. Repeat Steps 1 6 using a different resistor. 8. Replace the resistor in the circuit with a 6.3 V light bulb. Repeat Steps 25, but this time increase the voltage in 0.1 V steps up to 5.0 V. 9. To compare slopes of data at different parts of the curve, first click and drag the mouse over the first 3 data points. Click the Linear Fit button, , and record the slope of the regression line in the data table. Be sure to enter the units of the slope. 10. Click and drag the mouse over the last 10 points on the graph. Click the Linear Fit button, , and record the slope of the regression line in the data table. DATA TABLE Slope of regression Y-intercept of line (V/A) regression line (V) Resistor 51 104.1 -.05453

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Ohms Law Resistor Light bulb 10 15.31 33.77 .08065 .3612

ANALYSIS 1. As the potential across the resistor increased, the current through the resistor increased. If the change in current is proportional to the voltage, the data should be in a straight line and it should go through zero. In these two examples how close is the y-intercept to zero? For the 51 ohm resistor, the y-intercept is .05453 V away from 0. For the 51 ohm resistor, the y-intercept is . 08065 V away from 0. Is there a proportional relationship between voltage and current? Yes, the data for both is in a straight line and it almost goes through zero. (See graphs #1 and #3). If so, write the equation for each run in the form potential = constant current. (Use a numerical value for the constant.) By dividing the potential by the current at each point and averaging the sum, I arrived at the constant 49.12 for P1. So P1 = 49.12 x current. Consequently, I arrived at the constant 10.42 for P2. So P2 = 10.42 x current. 2. Compare the constant in each of the above equations to the resistance of each resistor. The resistance for P1 is 51 and the constant is 49.12. The resistance for P2 is 10 and the constant is 10.42. This gives a 3.6% error for P1 and a 4.2% error for P2. 3. Resistance, R, is defined using R = V/I where V is the potential across a resistor, and I is the current. R is measured in ohms ( where 1 = 1 V/A. The constant you determined in each ), equation should be similar to the resistance of each resistor. However, resistors are manufactured such that their actual value is within a tolerance. For most resistors used in this lab, the tolerance is 5% or 10%. Check with your instructor to determine the tolerance of the resistors you are using. Calculate the range of values for each resistor. Does the constant in each equation fit within the appropriate range of values for each resistor? Because 3.6% and 4.2% are less than 5%, the constant in each equation does in fact fit within the appropriate range of values for each resistor. 4. Do your resistors follow Ohms law? Base your answer on your experimental data. Yes. In question 1, I showed that the data fits the equations P1 = 49.12 x current and P2 = 10.42 x current. Since I showed that the constant can be replaced by the resistance of the resistor and potential is measured in volts, the equations become V=IR. 5. Describe what happened to the current through the light bulb as the potential increased. Was the change linear? No. (See graph #13) Since the slope of the linear regression line is a measure of resistance, describe what happened to the resistance as the voltage increased. The resistance increased as the voltage increased. Since the bulb gets brighter as it gets hotter, how does the resistance vary with temperature? Resistance increases as temperature increases. 6. Does your light bulb follow Ohms law? Base your answer on your experimental data. No, it doesnt. Mathematically, Ohm's law says that in V=IR. R is the constant of proportionality that must remain the same no matter what the values of I and V. But since graph #13 shows that resistance increased as voltage increased, this isnt true. EXTENSIONS 1. Investigate Ohms law for reverse currents in resistors. Turn off the power supply and reverse the connections on the power supply. Turn the power supply back on and take data from 5.0 V to 0 V. Do not stop data collection. Turn off the power supply, restore the connections to the circuit to their original configuration, and turn the power supply back on. Take data from 0 to 5 V as before. Is the current still proportional to the potential across the resistor? All data is nearly zero. Not sure what this means. (See graph #2).

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Computer 22 2. Investigate the behavior of other electrical devices such as diodes, LEDs, and Zener diodes. Make one run, then reverse the direction of the device and repeat. We experimented with the LED (see graph #4). The graph is similar to graph of the light bulb (#13). This indicates that the LED does not follow Ohms Law because resistance varies. When reversed, graph is similar to graph#2, with all data being nearly zero. Not sure what this means. 3. Use a low voltage AC power supply and measure current and voltage as a function of time in a simple circuit. Compare the two graphs. Create a graph of voltage vs. current. Perform a linear regression over this data and compare to the resistance in the circuit. (See graph #7). We collected a point every two seconds. The points are all about the same value. Since we know that AC power oscillates, it makes sense that the points are all at the same value on a constant interval. LO conclusion: 1) The first lab question is answered by hypothesis 1. The answer to the second lab question is that a light bulb acts differently than the other resistor because unlike the resistor, the temperature of the bulb changes and with it, the resistance. 2) Hypothesis 1 is correct. Observe graphs #1 and #3. I test that V=IR by dividing the potential by the current at each point, averaging the sum, and comparing this value to the resistance value of the resistor. For the first graph, I arrived at the constant 49.12 for resistance. Similarly, I arrived at the constant 10.42 for resistance of graph 3. The resistance for graph 1 is 51and the constant is 49.12. The resistance for graph 3 is 10 and the constant is 10.42. This gives a 3.6% error for graph 1 and a 4.2% error for graph 2. Because 3.6% and 4.2% are less than 5%, the constant in each equation does in fact fit within the appropriate range of resistance values for each resistor. Thus, V=IR is true. Hypothesis 2 is incorrect. Ohm's law says that in V=IR. R is the constant of proportionality that must remain the same no matter what the values of I and V. However, in graph #13, which represents the circuit with the light bulb, the first few points appear to have a much smaller slope between them than the slopes between the last few points. This indicates that resistance increases as the voltage increases in the circuit. So the light bulb behaves differently than the other resistor. 3) There are three possible sources of error in this lab. One possible source of error is that the Vernier readings jumped around every few milliseconds. As a result, we didnt know which reading to record. This would have skewed our calculations for total voltage and total resistance. This could be alleviated by calling the Vernier phone number and asking costumer service what to do in this situation. Another possible source of error is that the longer we ran electricity through the circuits, the resistor started to smoke and turn black. This indicates that the electricity was melting the resistor, which would have increased the resistance value of the resistor and skewed our calculations for voltage and current. This could be alleviated by letting less electricity in the circuit. A final source of error could be that he alligator clips were very hard to open and close. As a result, it is possible that we made an insufficient connection between the alligator clips and the resistor pins. This would have skewed our voltage and current measurement. This could be alleviated by using alligator clips that are easier to open. 4) We use parallel circuits in our everyday lives. One instance is during the holidays . Christmas tree lights are normally wired in parallel. If one of the branches breaks, then there are still routes for the electricity to take to get to the rest of the lights. As a result, just because one bulb dies, it doesnt mean that the whole string will die.

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