Understanding Resistance and Phasors for Non-Electrical Engineers

[girls4engineers]

Resistance and Phasors?

Hi I am a Mechanical engineer but I am taking a module in electrical, which isn't my strong point. Please can someone explain the differnce between bilateral and unilateral resistance and what is a good website to help me understand phasors and sinusoidal quantities.
Thanks x

 

[berkeman]

Probably wikipedia.org has some info on phasors. I'm not familiar with the terms bilateral and unilateral resistance. Can you provide some context for those terms?

 

[antonantal]

Here's a good website for AC theory: http://www.ibiblio.org/obp/electricCircuits/AC/index.html

 

[SGT]

You can define a resistor as a device in which voltage and current are related to each other at any instant. The relationship is called the characteristic of the resistor.
By this definition, an ohmic resistor, a diode or a voltage source can all be considered resistors.
A bilateral resistor is one whose characteristic curve is symmetrical in relation to the origin. An ohmic resistor is bilateral, a diode is not.