Preliminary Investigation
Thickness of a wire
Aim:
To find out how the thickness of a wire affects the resistance of a wire.
Prediction
I predict that as the thickness of the wire increases, the resistance of the wire will decrease because the electrons will have more space to move, so there is less chance of the electrons colliding with the ions because there are gaps between the ions, which therefore results in the resistance to decrease.
22 S.W.G 30 S.W.G
The diagram above shows how ionic arrangement in a wire varies with thickness. In the thinner wire (22 s.w.g) the ions are packed together, so when they vibrate there are more collisions with the electrons, because there are less gaps between ions so therefore the resistance in higher. Whereas in the thicker wire (30 s.w.g) the ions have gaps between them, so therefore when the ions vibrate there are less chances of collisions with the electrons so the resistance decreases.