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American Journal of Physics -- June 2009 -- Volume 77, Issue 6, pp. 516

Ohm’s law for a wire in contact with a thermal reservoir

M. J. Madsen

Department of Physics, Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Indiana 47933

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Ohm’s law is one of the key empirical relations taught in introductory courses on electricity. Students often do a straightforward experiment to measure the current through a resistor as a function of voltage. These experiments typically yield a linear relation between the current and the voltage using carbon film resistors. However, the same measurements on long lengths of conducting wire (such as common wire resistivity kits) typically have a clear nonlinear component. The nonlinear behavior can be modeled using simple principles of heat transfer with a thermal reservoir. Experimental results are shown to agree well with this simple model.

© 2009 American Association of Physics Teachers

KEYWORDS and PACS

Keywords

carbon, educational courses, electrical resistivity, electromagnetism, heat transfer, physics education, student experiments, thin film resistors, wires (electric)

PACS

  • 01.50.Pa

    Laboratory experiments and apparatus

  • 05.00.00

    Statistical physics, thermodynamics, and nonlinear dynamical systems

RELATED DATABASES

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History
Received Jul 2008
Accepted Feb 2009
Online May 2009

PUBLICATION DATA

ISSN

0002-9505 (print)  

Publisher

$abstract.society.value is a Member of CrossRef American Association of Physics Teachers

ARTICLE DATA

Digital Object Identifier
http://dx.doi.org/10.1119/1.3097778

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