Video Transcript
Which of the following sentences
describes what will happen to a wire in a circuit if a very large current is passed
through it? (A) The wire will heat up. (B) The wire will cool down. (C) The wire will neither heat up
nor cool down.
Alright, let’s say that we have a
battery. Actually, let’s make that a
gigantic battery. And say we decide to take a bit of
conducting wire, and we connect up the ends of this battery. What will happen is charge will
flow through the wire, lots of charge. As these charges move though, they
will run into particles in the wire. This causes a transfer of energy
from the moving charges to the wire. The result is that the temperature
of the wire goes up. Option (A) is the correct answer
choice. With all those moving charges in a
very large current interacting with particles in the wire, energy is transferred to
the wire, and it heats up.
