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Physics Lab Report

The resistance in a circuit increases as the rheostat is moved along the resistor, lowering the measured current. A student experimented with this by connecting a battery, resistor with rheostat, ammeter and voltmeter in a circuit. As the rheostat was adjusted to increase resistance, voltage readings increased while current decreased, supporting the hypothesis. Some data points were omitted due to the aging battery, but results generally showed an inverse relationship between voltage and current.

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Nadine Sjahsam
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77 views

Physics Lab Report

The resistance in a circuit increases as the rheostat is moved along the resistor, lowering the measured current. A student experimented with this by connecting a battery, resistor with rheostat, ammeter and voltmeter in a circuit. As the rheostat was adjusted to increase resistance, voltage readings increased while current decreased, supporting the hypothesis. Some data points were omitted due to the aging battery, but results generally showed an inverse relationship between voltage and current.

Uploaded by

Nadine Sjahsam
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Nadine Sjahsam

Observation:

How does the resistance differ as a rheostat moves along the resistor?

Hypothesis:

The higher the resistance, the smaller the current measured.

Background:

An emf is an electromotive force. Electromotive force is the energy unit per unit charge discharged

from a power source. In this case, our power source was a battery.

This is a diagram depicting the internal resistance of a cell.

R represents the load resistance, A represents the ammeter, V represents the voltmeter, r represents the

internal resistance, and ε represents the e.m.f.

The equation for finding e.m.f. Is: ε = 𝐼𝑅 + 𝐼𝑟 = 𝐼(𝑅 + 𝑟)


R is the resistor in the circuit.

Ohm’s law states that 𝐼𝑅 = 𝑉, so:

ε = 𝑉 + 𝐼𝑟

𝑉 = ε − 𝐼𝑟

Ohm’s law says that the current through a conductor is proportional to the voltage across the

conductor.

Materials:

- Paper

- Pen

- Ammeter

- Voltmeter

- Primary Cell

- 5 Electrical Cables

- Resistor with rheostat

Procedure:

1. Connect the cell and resistor using 2 electrical wires to create a circuit

2. Connect the voltmeter to both ends of the resistor

3. Connect the ammeter to the battery

4. Adjust the rheostat to different place, taking care to cut the circuit before touching any part of it

5. After each position, note the readings from the ammeter and voltmeter

6. Repeat this process until there are 8 data points

7. Plot your data

Results:
The table shows the readings from the ammeter and voltmeter that were collected during the

experiment. The slope of the line of best fit appears to be approximately -1.04. This shows a negative

correlation with volts and current. As the voltage increases, the current decreases.

Current/I Voltage/V

0.09 4.48

0.41 4.2

0.08 4.49

0.15 4.41

0.1 4.47

0.24 4.35

0.6 3.92
Discussion:

As the battery was in use for many years for previous experiments, it seemed to be dying. Some data

points had to be omitted to maintain a somewhat linear correlation in the graph. As the volts

increased, the current decreased, proving the hypothesis correct.

Some strengths of this experiment were that the readings were displayed clearly on the ammeter and

voltmeter. It was also a fast process without too many complicated steps.

Some weaknesses were that the circuit had to be broken to move the rheostat which may have delayed

some parts of the process. Additionally, some of the points became clustered around the same point.

Conclusion:

The hypothesis was proven as we could see a decrease in current as the resistance increased.

Future Work:

A future experiment idea could be to do internal resistance in a box with an unknown resistor, with the

goal of finding the resistance.

Resources:

https://spark.iop.org/internal-resistance-shoe-box-cell

https://www.vedantu.com/physics/to-determine-the-internal-resistance-of-a-given-primary-cell-using-
a-potentiometer-experiment

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