Criticize the statement below on theoretical and experimental grounds. Be specific and precise. Refer to your own experiments, or describe any new experiments you perform: “A flashlight battery always puts out the same amount of current, no matter what is connected to it.”

Short Answer

Expert verified

The provided statement is false. Current in a circuit changes with change in resistance.

Step by step solution

01

Given data

According to a statement: “A flashlight battery always puts out the same amount of current, no matter what is connected to it.”

02

Current in a circuit

The current in a circuit depends on the total resistance of the circuit. More the resistance, lesser the current.

03

Check of the provided statement

A battery can never put out the same amount of current if the load is changed. A battery can only provide a fixed amount of force into the electrons. While passing through each resistance, a part of the energy is lost. Thus the rate of flow decreases.

Hence more number of resistances reduces the current from the same battery. This can be tested by performing an experiment with a battery and multiple resistances. The current can be measured each time the resistance is changed. The observation will be change in current in each case.

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Most popular questions from this chapter

Inside a chemical battery it is not actually individual electrons that are transported from the + end to the – end. At the + end of the battery an “acceptor” molecule picks up an electron entering the battery, and at the – end a different “donor” molecule gives up an electron, which leaves the battery. Ions rather than electrons move between the two ends to support the charge inside the battery.

When the supplies of acceptor and donor molecules are used up in a chemical battery, the battery is dead because it can no longer accept or electron. The electron current in electron per second times the number of seconds of battery life, is equal to the number of donor molecules in the battery.

A flashlight battery contains approximately half a mole of donor molecules. The electron current through a thick filament bulb powered by two flashlight batteries in series is about 0.3 A. About how many hours will the batteries keep this bulb lit?

In a table like the one shown, write an inequality comparing each quantity in the steady state for a narrow resistor and thick connecting wires, which are made of the same material as the resistor.

Electron current in resistor

<,=, or >

Electron current in Thick Wires

nR

nw

AR

Aw

uR

uw

ER

Ew

vR

vw

Suppose that a wire leads into another, thinner wire of the same material that has only a third the cross-sectional area. In the steady state, the number of electrons per second flowing through the thick wire must be equal to the number of electrons per second flowing through the thin wire. If the drift speedV1¯in the thick wire is 4×10-5ms, what is the drift speed V¯2in the thinner wire?

There are very roughly the same number of iron atoms per m3 as there are copper atoms per m3 , but copper is a much better conductor than iron. How does uiron compare with ucopper?

The emf of a particular flashlight battery is 1.7 V. If the battery is 4.5 cm long and radius of cylindrical battery is 1 cm, estimate roughly the amount of charge on the positive end plate of the battery.

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