If the length of the potentiometer wire is increased while keeping the voltage constant, what will happen to the balance point when measuring a cell's EMF?
Practice Questions
1 question
Q1
If the length of the potentiometer wire is increased while keeping the voltage constant, what will happen to the balance point when measuring a cell's EMF?
It will move to a longer length.
It will move to a shorter length.
It will remain unchanged.
It will become unstable.
Increasing the length of the potentiometer wire while keeping the voltage constant will increase the balance point length for the same EMF.
Questions & Step-by-step Solutions
1 item
Q
Q: If the length of the potentiometer wire is increased while keeping the voltage constant, what will happen to the balance point when measuring a cell's EMF?
Solution: Increasing the length of the potentiometer wire while keeping the voltage constant will increase the balance point length for the same EMF.
Steps: 6
Step 1: Understand what a potentiometer is. It is a device used to measure the electromotive force (EMF) of a cell by comparing it to a known voltage.
Step 2: Know that the balance point is the point on the potentiometer wire where the voltage across the wire equals the EMF of the cell being measured.
Step 3: Realize that the voltage across the potentiometer wire is determined by the length of the wire and the total voltage applied to it.
Step 4: If you increase the length of the potentiometer wire while keeping the voltage constant, the voltage per unit length of the wire decreases.
Step 5: Since the voltage per unit length is lower, it will take a longer length of wire to reach the same voltage as the EMF of the cell.
Step 6: Therefore, the balance point will move further along the wire, meaning it will increase.