ELECTRIC CURRENT Lecture 4

 Electric Current
 Ohm’s Law: Resistance and Resistors
 Resistivity
 Electric Power
 Alternating Current
 Microscopic View of Electric Current
 Electric Current

Only one of these circuits will work:

 • Electric current is
the rate of flow of
charge through a
conductor:

1 A of current is equivalent to 1 C of charge passing through the

surface area in 1 s.
 • By
convention,
current is
defined as
flowing
from + to -.
• Electrons
actually
flow in the
Potensial tinggi opposite
Ar direction.
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rik
Al
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n
el
te ek
g tro
an n
g an
Potensial rendah
 Ohm’s Law: Resistance and Resistors

• Experimentally, it is found that the

current in a wire is proportional to the
potential difference between its ends:

• The ratio of voltage to current is called

Unit of resistance: Ω
the resistance: ;
(1 Ω = 1 V/A)
• In many conductors, the resistance is
independent of the voltage; this
relationship is called Ohm’s law.
• Materials that do not follow Ohm’s law
are called non-ohmic.
 Resistivity

• The resistance of a
wire is directly
proportional to its
length and inversely
proportional to its
cross-sectional area:

• The constant ρ, the

resistivity, is
characteristic of the
material.
 RESISTIVITY

For any given material, the resistivity increases with temperature:

Example: A resistance thermometer,

which measures temperature by
measuring the change in resistance of a
conductor, is made from platinum and has
a resistance of 50 at C. When immersed in
a vessel containing melting indium, its
resistance increases to 76.8 . Assuming
that the resistance varies linearly with
temperature over the temperature range in
question, what is the melting point of
indium? (Ans: =C)
 Electric Power

• Power, as in kinematics, is the energy transformed by a

device per unit time:

• The unit of power is the watt, W.

• What you pay for on your electric bill is not power, but
energy ; the power consumption multiplied by the time.
• We have been measuring energy in joules, but the electric
company measures it in kilowatt-hours, kWh.
 EXAMPLE

 Two lightbulbs A and B are connected

across the same potential difference as in
Figure. The electric input powers to the
lightbulbs are shown. Which lightbulb has
the higher resistance? Which carries the
greater current?
Ans: Because the voltage across each lightbulb is
the same and the rate of energy delivered to a
resistor , the lightbulb with the lower resistance
exhibits the higher rate of energy transfer. In this
case, the resistance of A is larger than that for B.
Furthermore, because , we see that the current
carried by B is larger than that of A.
 SOURCES OF EMF

A real battery, however, always has some internal

resistance As a result, the terminal voltage is not
equal to the emf.
The terminal voltageof the battery is

or
RESISTORS IN SERIES
RESISTORS IN PARALLEL
 EXAMPLE

 Three resistors are connected in

parallel as in Figure. A potential
difference of 18 V is maintained
between points a and b.
a) Find the current in each resistor.
b) Calculate the power delivered to
each resistor and the total
power delivered to the three
resistors.
c) Calculate the equivalent
resistance of the combination of
three resistors. Answer:
a) I1= 6 A ; I2= 3 A ; I3= 2 A
b) P1=108 W ; P2=54 W ; P3=36 W
c) R eq = 1.64
 ❑
∑ 𝐼 =0 KIRCHHOFF’S RULES ❑
∑ Δ 𝑉 =0
𝑗𝑢𝑛𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑙 𝑜𝑜𝑝

𝐼 1 = 𝐼 2+ 𝐼 3
EXAMPLE

a) Find the currents I1,

I2, and I3 in the
circuit shown in
Figure.
b) Find the potential
difference between
c points b and c.
 Alternating Current

• Current from a battery flows

steadily in one direction (direct
current, DC).
• Current from a power plant
varies sinusoidally (alternating
current, AC).
• The voltage varies sinusoidally
with time:

• The current:
Multiplying the current and the voltage gives the power:

The average power:

 Microscopic View of Electric Current

• Electrons in a conductor have large, random speeds just

due to their temperature.
• When a potential difference is applied, the electrons also
acquire an average drift velocity, which is generally
considerably smaller than the thermal velocity.
 MICROSCOPIC VIEW OF ELECTRIC
CURRENT

• This drift speed is related to the current in the wire, and also
to the number of electrons per unit volume.
 CURRENT DENSITY

𝐼
𝐽 = =𝑛 𝑒 𝑣 𝑑
𝐴

For many materials (including most metals), the

ratio of the current density to the electric field is a
constant & that is independent of the electric field
producing the current.