Electricity and Magnetism

Problems Set 4 Current and resistance. Ohms law. Electric Power.

Ill put a summary of the main ideas and formulas that you need here at the top, simply to have
it all in one place. You dont need all of this at once to do the first problems.

Current and resistance

In an isolated conductor there is random motion of the free charges inside the conductor
because of thermal energy. This means, roughly, that there is as much charge moving in one
direction as the opposite. If you imagine following the motion of just one charge it looks like a
random walk. The charge changes direction randomly as it collides with the stationary atoms of
the lattice that make up the solid conductor. One analogue to this would be the motion of air
molecules in a room. These keep colliding with each other, the walls and the floor. On a large
scale the air doesnt move anywhere but is still. On a microscopic scale theres a lot of random
motion of molecules. To get the air moving as a whole in a given direction i.e. to get wind you
need a pressure difference between one region and another. To get the free charges in a
conductor to move, en masse, from one region towards another, i.e. to get an electric current,
you need a potential difference between these regions. So the quantity that in this analogue
corresponds to pressure difference is potential difference.
If you have a potential difference between two points, say the ends of a conductor wire, theres
then an electric field (or component of electric field) along the direction between the points.
There is then an electric force that pushes (positive) free charges in that direction, so we get a
flow of charges i.e. an electric current. To maintain the current we need to maintain the potential
difference. In practice this is done by a voltage source that maintains a potential difference
between its terminals. So to get a current flowing in the wire we connect one end to one
terminal of the source and the other end to the other terminal. Note that we then dont have a
static situation anymore and the electric field inside the conductor is no longer zero.
Lets look at this also from the energy perspective from the point of view of the moving charge. If
a (positive) charge in the conductor wire starts at point 1 at potential V1 and potential energy
qV1 and ends up at point 2 at a lower potential V2 and lower potential energy qV2 it has lost
energy qV1 - qV2. Where did this energy go?
If this motion happened in vacuum the potential energy lost in going from 1 to 2 would appear
as kinetic energy gained, as the electric force kept accelerating the charge, along its motion
from 1 to 2. However, youll find later that there is no gain in kinetic energy. The charge moves
at the same speeds, called the drift velocity, at points 1 and 2 (assuming a wire of constant
cross-section.) Instead, as the charge moves along the wire it keeps colliding with the atoms of
the lattice of the wire material. In these collisions some of its kinetic energy is transferred to the
atoms of the lattice. This appears as heat (random kinetic energy or vibration) of the lattice
atoms. After a collision the charge again gains kinetic energy as it is accelerated by the electric
field and then loses part of it in the next collision. The upshot of this is that on the average the
charge can be taken to move with a (constant) average speed, the drift velocity, and an
(constant) average kinetic energy.

This reminds of the case of terminal velocity of a falling body in air from the Mechanics course:
As the body dropped downward losing gravitational potential energy it was accelerated until it
reached a terminal velocity. At his velocity the force of air resistance upward (due to collisions
with the air molecules) was equal to the gravitational force downward, due to the gravitational
field, and the body then kept dropping with this constant terminal velocity.

For the electrical case, the property of the wire material that resists the flow of charges is
expressed by the resistance of the wire.

So the answer to the question, where did the lost potential energy qV1 - qV2 go, is that it turned
to heat of the conductor material through collision with its atoms. How much the conductor
material resists the flow of charges from a higher potential to a lower is summed up by Ohms
law, which tells you how large the current I will be for a given potential difference V
V = IR
so here V = V1 - V2 is the potential difference between points 1 and 2 and R is the resistance
between the points.
Current I is defined as

I dq dt .
It gives the amount of charge flowing through a cross-section of the wire. The unit of current is
C/s = A (Ampere). From above we see that the unit of resistance is V/A = (Ohm).
For the resistance of a piece of wire of length l and cross-section area A we find
R l / A

where is the resistivity of the wire material.

Usually the resistance of a wire of a good conductor material like copper is very small and in
circuits we can often ignore the resistance of the wire. Actual resistors are still pieces of some
conductor material but with much larger resistance than a small length of copper wire.

Resistors in series and in parallel

As for capacitors resistors can be connected in parallel and in series. The combination can be
thought of as a single resistor of equivalent resistance Req . For two resistors R1 and R2 in series
we have
Req R1 R2

and for two resistors in parallel

1
1
1
.

Req R1 R2

Power dissipated by a resistor

Lets put the idea that the potential energy lost by a charge as it moves in the wire is converted
to heat into mathematical form. Say an amount dq of charge moves from point 1 to point 2 and
therefore loses potential energy Vdq (V1 V2 )dq and this happens in a time dt . The amount of
energy turned into heat per time is then V dq dt VI P so the amount of heat per time or
heating power generated by the resistor is then P. Using Ohms law we can write this in three
alternative ways
P IV I 2 R V 2 / R

Kirchoffs second law

Kirchoffs law is just a way of writing the conservation of energy for a circuit loop in a way that is
useful for calculations. The idea is very simple but is often expressed as a complicated
sentence in textbooks. The idea is this: Say a charge moves in a circuit and completes a closed
loop so that it ends up where it started from. Its potential energy at the end is then the same as
in the beginning as it is at the same point it started from. So, theres no change in potential
energy in going around the loop. Theres also no change in kinetic energy because the current
at that point is fixed and hence also the speed of the charge at that point. The change in energy
of the charge going around the loop is therefore zero, and in particular the change in potential
will be zero.
(We will idealize things a little here and assume that the conductor wire has zero resistance.
This is usually perfectly ok. For two points 1 and 2 along the wire with zero resistance between
them Ohms law gives V V1 V2 IR 0 or V1 V2 . So the potential has the same value
everywhere in a piece of conductor wire. )
Lets do this in excruciating detail. Going through this once will probably be enough for you to
get the idea and learn the method.

Look at the simple circuit in the figure. The potential difference between the terminals of the
voltage source is , so Vb Va = .

In the second figure there are points a-f indicated. Also indicated is the direction in which we go
around the loop, and I have here chosen clockwise. A guess for the direction of the current I is
also indicated.
The method is to choose a starting point, say point a where the potential is Va , and then go
stepwise from one point to the next and for each step add the increase or decrease in potential
until you come full circle back to the starting point. The final potential will then be the initial
potential Va plus all the changes for each step from one point to the next. Finally the difference
in the end point potential and initial potential will have to be zero if these are the same point.

So start at point a where the potential is Va .

Move to point b. The potential at b is then Vb Va
Move to point c. Theres no change in potential as Vc Vb so Vc Va
Move to point d through the resistor R1 . You will then go in the direction of the indicated current
I . Current in a resistor flows from higher potential to lower potential so Vd is smaller than Vc .
Ohms law says Vc Vd IR1 or Vd Vc IR1 .
Substituting Vc Va we have
at point d Vd Va IR1 .
Move to point e. Theres no change in potential so Ve Va IR1
Move to point f. We are again going from a higher potential to a lower potential so the potential
again decreases, this time by IR2 so V f Ve IR2 which gives

V f Va IR1 IR2 .
As V f Va we get
IR1 IR2 0

1. To get the scale of things calculate how many electrons flow through a cross-section of a
wire per second when the wire carries a small current of 1.0 mA.
2.

I1 = I2

3.

right

Decrease 3V

Decreases 3V

zero

down

left

4.

CounterClockwise

Decrease

Kinetic Energy

5.

6.

I3 = I4 > I1 = I2

7.

I4 = I7 >

8.

9.

R1 > R2 => P1 > P2

10.

11.

12.

Vab = Vcd

13.

14. Suppose you have a 12 V battery and a supply of identical resistors. What you actually want is a
4 V voltage (perhaps as the input voltage for some gadget or circuit stage). How can this be
accomplished?
15.

16.

17.

P2 > P1

18.

19.

same

I3 > I1 = I2 = I4 = I5

20.

21.

B and C go out. A brighter

22.

b: more +

Left, from high potential to low

23.

B out, no close path.

A dimmer. Rtotal >> => I <<

A out, B brighter

24.

I decreases

25.

same

26.

same

27. A source in an open circuit

I = 0 A, V = 12V

28. A source in a complete circuit

I = E / (R+r) = 2 A
Va'b' = E - Ir = 8V

29.

I = 0A
Va'b' = 0V

Vab = 12V

Va'b' = Vab = 8V

I = 2A

30.

Vab = E - Ir = 0

I = 6A

31. A heater has three settings for heating power and it will dissipate 500 W, 1000 W or 1500 W,
depending on the setting of the switch K. The switch K can be set so that it connects with points
A, B or C. Which setting corresponds to which power? What are the resistance values for R 1, R2
and R3? The voltage source provides 230 V as indicated.

A: 1500W, B: 1000W, C: 500W