Introduction
To understand electrical resistance, you’ll need to understand some basic units of what current, row, and voltage mean. The current (amps) is like actual electricity, it’s the electrons in the wire flowing toward the load. Meanwhile, voltage (volts) is pretty much the “pressure” that is pushing the current towards its load. Lastly, a row ()is basically like a constant. It doesn’t change during whatever it’s used for. Depending on the context it can change the molecules structure to even resistance. You can think of these terms as a water pump, where the water is the current, the actual pump is the voltage, and the water’s material is the row.
What is Electrical Resistance
Electrical Resistance is basically what stops electrons from going at their maximum speed. This concept is measured in Ohms (). The actual “resistance” is just the wire's material molecules colliding and slowing down electrons flowing through the wire. With more atoms in the area, the electric resistance increases, vice versa.
Sometimes though, the resistance is more in a wire than it can control, then the circuit’s current would short circuit or stop; it might even explode! This can disrupt normal patterns and affect anything that uses electricity. Even planes!
In order to derive a wire’s Electrical Resistance, you must divide the voltage of the wire by the electrical current. (R = VC) Another formula that you can use to find the Electrical Resistance is (R = ρ L (in)A(in)) where ‘A’ is 4*d(diameter)2and ρ is the row. Both of these formulas can be used depending on the information that you have.
Resistance’s Meaning
Resistance is basically both a good and bad thing depending on the context and the wants of the circuit. If you want the electricity to go somewhere, then electrical resistance isn't that useful because the resistance will stop the electricity from going as fast as it could. Meanwhile in the latter, if you want to create heat or light; resistance is good in moderate amounts depending on the wire’s characteristics and load as the collisions will result in energy being released. For example, light-inducing chemicals in a lightbulb allow light to be created from the heat of resistance. The Electrical Resistance will need to be in moderation since you don’t want the electrons to go too fast and short circuit, but you still want to accomplish the goal of the load at a safe pace.
Resistors
Sometimes the wire doesn’t have the desired amount of resistance needed. This is where resistors come in. Resistors work by increasing or decreasing electrical resistance in a given circuit by adding more molecules into the circuit. Most of the time these materials are conductive so the electrons can still pass through them effectively.
The stripes in the image above actually stand for something instead of décor. The first and second band’s color shows how many ohms it stops. The 3rd-colored band shows how much the first two bands are multiplied by, and the last band shows how much the resistor can tolerate in extra. Sometimes some resistors even have 5 bands, so the first 3 bands stand for digits and everything else stays the same.
Continuing resistors have two main types, fixed and variable resistors! The fixed variables cannot be changed and are meant for specific denominations of wires depending on the resistor. On the other hand, variable resistors can vary depending on the wire’s need. It uses a little gauge which can turn the amount of copper wiring in the device and makes more resistance.
Conclusion
As you’ve probably seen Electrical Resistance is quite important in the making of complex circuits, as it can positively and negatively affect the circuit. Without it, you may not have light and heat in your house! Hopefully you learned something new about Electrical Resistance!
Citations
Braza, J. (2021, November 30). How resistors work. Circuit Basics.https://www.circuitbasics.com/what-is-a-resistor/#google_vignette
What is Resistance? | Hioki. (n.d.). https://www.hioki.com/us-en/learning/electricity/resistance.html
Irani, R. (2021, November 23). Everything you need to know about electrical resistance. Circuit Basics. https://www.circuitbasics.com/what-is-resistance/#google_vignette