Electric Potential

We started off todays lecture by trying to figure out  different ways that we can light a bulb with a battery and one wire.

We experimented with different ways to light the bulb and then drew the diagrams of what worked and what did not work.

Drawing a generic diagram for what worked, we then gave a description to the three components involved in the experiment. The battery gives energy/voltage, the bulb uses energy, displayed as light, and the wire is the material that the energy transfers through

Here we used two bulbs instead of one, which increased the brightness. The brightness was doubled, because we doubled the voltage/energy in the system

Above are different versions of an ammeter. An ammeter measures current at any point in a circuit. Simply wire it into the circuit at any point and it will give you the current at that point

Here we graphed the current vs. voltage graph. We found that the sloped was resistence. This leads to the equation V = IR.

Here we had current traveling through wires so we can see how area affected the equation V = IR

Doing experimenting, changing the area decreased the resistance experienced. This is a very important principle, that resistance is inversely proportional to cross-sectional area. If you are sending current through a wire, simply increase the cross-sectional area of the wire to decrease the resistance experienced.