SIMPLIFIED: "9.5: Ohm's Law"
- Simplifying Stem
- 4 days ago
- 2 min read
The article linked above discusses perhaps what is arguably the most important concept in electricity: Ohm’s Law. Just as a disclaimer, the article explains Ohm’s Law (which I will simplify for you here), but the article also explains how Georg Simon Ohm came up with his law and what experiments he did. This simplification of the article linked above will NOT be explaining Ohm’s experiment, so if you want to learn more about that, then read the actual article linked above.
Ohm’s Law basically comes down to this equation: V = I / R. V represents voltage, I represents current (yes, the letter I represents current), and R represents resistance. Looking at the equation, you can tell that there is a direct, proportional relationship between voltage and current. This means that if you double the amount of current going through a resistor, then the voltage will also double. However, if you increase the double the resistance of a resistor, then the voltage will half. When solving problems with circuits, if you know any two of the variables in the equation for any resistor, you can find the third one using the equation.
There is a difference between two materials regarding if they are ohmic or not. An ohmic material is one where the resistance will not change even if the voltage or current changes. Most problems that you solve with beginner circuit problems will always be dealing with ohmic resistors. However, if a material is non-ohmic, then the resistance can change if the voltage or current changes. Unlike an ohmic material, if you graph voltage vs. current for a non-ohmic material, you will NOT get a straight line. Although this makes things more complicated, you likely do not have to worry about non-ohmic materials in a typical high school physics class.
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