IB Physics-The Investigation

Data Set: Thursday 15th Nov 2007

Data Due: Thursday 22nd Nov 2007

RESISTIVITY OF A MATERIAL

ALBERT.LIU

11B

Aim:

The aim of the investigation is to determine the resistivity of a material by changing the length/ diameter of the conductor and compare/ evaluate the results obtained.

Theory:

The resistance of a conductor depends on four main factors:

  • Length
  • Cross-sectional area
  • Resistivity
  • Temperature

It can be shown that when temperature is kept constant

Where R is the resistance in, is the resistivity inm  is the length of the conductor in m, and A is the cross-sectional area of the conductor in.

The resistivity is specific to the type of material being used as resistance is affected by the nature of delocalised electrons and the positive ions within the material. The resistivity of a material is the resistance across opposite faces of a cube with sides of one metre.

Circuit diagram:

Data Collection:

The data is which we collected at the experiment.

Table 1:

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Table 2:

Procedure:

  1. Take 5 copper wires of different diameter (same length), and 4 of different length (same diameter). Label them with numbers 1-9.
  2. Set up the circuit diagram as shown in the diagram below.

  1. Set the range of the voltmeter in “0-20V”, and set the range of the ammeter in “0-20A”
  2. Connect wire number 1 in the circuit.
  3. Record the current and potential difference across the wire.
  4. Record the values for current and voltage in the table.
  5. Repeat step number 4 and 6 until finish with all wires.

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