In a potentiometer setup, if the wire is made of a material with higher resistivity, what effect does it have on the potential gradient?
Practice Questions
1 question
Q1
In a potentiometer setup, if the wire is made of a material with higher resistivity, what effect does it have on the potential gradient?
It increases
It decreases
It remains unchanged
It becomes infinite
Higher resistivity increases the resistance of the wire, which can lead to a decrease in current and thus affect the potential gradient.
Questions & Step-by-step Solutions
1 item
Q
Q: In a potentiometer setup, if the wire is made of a material with higher resistivity, what effect does it have on the potential gradient?
Solution: Higher resistivity increases the resistance of the wire, which can lead to a decrease in current and thus affect the potential gradient.
Steps: 6
Step 1: Understand what a potentiometer is. It is a device used to measure voltage by comparing it to a known voltage.
Step 2: Know that the wire in a potentiometer has a certain resistivity, which affects its resistance.
Step 3: Recognize that higher resistivity means the material of the wire has more opposition to the flow of electric current.
Step 4: Realize that if the resistance of the wire increases, the current flowing through the wire decreases.
Step 5: Understand that the potential gradient is the change in voltage per unit length of the wire.
Step 6: Conclude that if the current decreases due to higher resistance, the potential gradient will also decrease because there is less voltage drop across the same length of wire.
