Question

The student removes the 16 wire from the circuit and cuts it into two equal lengths.He then connects the two lengths in parallel between K and L, as shown in Fig. 8.2.

Answer 1

To find the equivalent resistance of a parallel resistors we use:

`(1)/(R_(eq))=(1)/(R_1)+(1)/(R_2)`

In this case both resistor one and two have a 16 Ω resistance, plugging these in the equation above we have:

`\begin{gathered} (1)/(R_(eq))=(1)/(16)+(1)/(16) \\ (1)/(R_(eq))=(16+16)/(256) \\ (1)/(R_(eq))=(32)/(256) \\ (1)/(R_(eq))=(1)/(8) \\ R_(eq)=8 \end{gathered}`

Therefore, the resistance of the two wires is 8 Ω