INSTITUTE OF HEALTH SCINCES

PHYSICS LABORATORY REPORT

VERIFYING OHMS LAW
MOMPATI LETSWELETSE
10/29/2014

MOMPATI LETSWELETSE ID: 3122

Date: 12-10-2014
TITLE: Ohm s Law and Resistor Circuits
AIM: To verify Ohms s law
APPARATUS

Rheostat(variable resistor)
Voltmeter
Ammeter
Crocodile clips
Connecting wire
Circuit board

THEORY
In the Botswana, most of us use electricity every day. That electricity is handled in circuits: a
closed loop of conductors travelling from power plants to neighborhoods to households and
back again. That closed loop, with all of its many parts, forms one huge electrical circuit.
Electricity is very useful when it comes to medical field as it used in various important aspects
which include saving the life of an individual using life saving machine, used to make an artificial
heart in case of heart failure, diagnose certain disease used in telemedicine among others
One of the fundamental laws describing how electrical circuits behave is Ohms law. According
to Ohms law, there is a linear relationship between the voltage drop across a circuit element
and the current flowing through it. Therefore the resistance R is viewed as a constant
independent of the voltage and the current. In equation form, Ohms law is:

V = IR.
V is the voltage applied across the circuit in volts (V), I is the current flowing through the circuit
in units of amperes (A), and R is the resistance of the circuit with units of ohms (). The above
equation implies that, for a resistor with constant resistance, the current flowing through it is
proportional to the voltage across it. If the voltage is held constant, then the current is inversely
proportional to the resistance. If the voltage polarity is reversed (that is, if the applied voltage is
negative instead of positive), the same current flows but in the opposite direction.
If Ohms law is valid, it can be used to define resistance as:
R=
Where R is a constant, independent of V and I. It is important to understand what is meant by
these quantities. The current (I) is a measure of how many electrons are flowing past a given
point during a set amount of time. The current flows because of the electric potential (V ),
1

MOMPATI LETSWELETSE ID: 3122

sometimes referred to as the voltage, applied to a circuit. In much the same way that a
gravitational potential will cause mass to move, the electric potential will cause electrons to
move. If one point of the circuit has a high electric potential, it means that it has a net positive
charge and another point of the circuit with a low potential will have a net negative charge.
Electrons in a wire will flow from low electric potential with its net negative charge to high
electric potential with its net positive charge because unlike charges attract and like charges
repel. As these electrons flow through the wire, they are scattered by atoms in the wire. The
resistance of the circuit is a measure of how difficult it is for the electrons to flow in the
presence of such scattering. Materials that have a low resistance are called conductors and
materials that have a very high resistance are called insulators. Some materials have a
moderate resistance and still allow some current to flow. In a nutshell the electric potential
causes the current to flow and the resistance impedes that flow.
PROCUDURE

Figure 1: Experimental circuit

Power supply on the left (from the circuit) was set at 3VDC.The 340 rheostat was connected
as the voltage divider. By moving the rheostat wiper, the voltage across r was varied from 0 to
3V.
The voltmeter was connected across the ends of a resistor while the ammeter A connected the
rheostat to the resistor and was said to be in series with the resistor. The current I through R
was measured for at least 5 voltages across R and 1 and 3 volts

MOMPATI LETSWELETSE ID: 3122

RESULT AND ANALYSIS

THE TABLE BELOW SHOWS THE CURRENT VALUES WITH THEIR CORRESPONDING
VOLTAGE VALUES OBTAINED IN AN EXPERIMENT.

CURRENT(A

VOLTAGE

0.019

1.8

0.020

0.023

1.9

0.029

2.8

0.030

2.9

The expression linear resistor signifies that the plot of I vs R is a straight line or a linear plot
Calculations
The equation of the line of best fit is
therefore calculating the slope using the points (1.8, 0.019) and (2.9, 0.030)
(0.8-1.4)/(0.008-0.014)=99.41
the slope or gradient of the line give us the resistance which is 99.41

MOMPATI LETSWELETSE ID: 3122

From or using the color code to calculate the resistor which was colored: brown black brown
and gold it shows that the resistance of the resistor is (100 5)
Calculating the percentage error
((100-99.41)/100)*100=0.59%
DISCUSSION
The experiment was performed successfully it was found that the resistance of the resistor
using graphical method was 100 and using the color code was 100 giving us 0.59% error.
They might have been some errors which could led to the obtained result which include the
following.

Parallex error: this might have occurred when measuring the voltage and ammeter this
can be improved by using a digital voltmeter and ammeter without having to use the
analog
Heating effect: current that travelled via wires caused heating wire which increased the
resistance of wire henceforth altering the resistance of the resistor
The experiment was performed by many students this lead to misjudgment of the
obtained results each student had their own way of interpreting the reading especially
where it was not clear to get the reading this error could be eliminated by having one
student performing the experiment.
Zero error: The ammeter and voltmeter which were being used had zero their initial
reading were not from zero so this could lead to wrong reading being taken.
CONCLUSION
The aim of this experiment was to discover to verify Ohms s law. It is discovered that the there is
a linear relationship between the voltage drop across a circuit element and the current flowing
through it hence proving and verify Ohms law.

REFERENCES
Nave and Nave, Physics for the Health Sciences,3RD Edition.Saunders,New
York
Smith and Copper,Elements of physics,8th Edition.Mcgraw-hill,New York
Giancol Douglas (2009).Physics for the scientist and engineers with
modern. Pearson Pretice hall, New Jersey