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Can someone explain how I can find the resistance of an ohmic resistor of unknown resistance by setting up a simple circuit using a voltmeter and household appliances? Thanks
berkeman
Aug7-09, 04:40 PM
Thread moved to Intro Physics.
What are your thoughts on how to approach this question? The simplest answer is that most voltmeters have resistance measuring capability, but I'm pretty sure that's not the answer that folks want you to come up with. If the meter can only measure voltage, and you only have one unknown value resistor (and no reference resistor), then what else can you do? What does the question mean by "household appliances"? Can you take them apart and take out batteries, cut out resistors that you can read the color code on to figure out their resistance and use them as references? What?
Redbelly98
Aug7-09, 08:40 PM
I hope whoever posed the question is not thinking of using the resistance of a light bulb calculated from it's voltage and power ratings. That resistance calculation would actually be wrong at room temperature.
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