Alec Haas
Introduction
Ohm’s Law is V = I * R or in some cases I = V / R. The next two laws were established by a German physicist by the name of Gustav Kirchhoff. Kirchhoff’s first law is his voltage law. Kirchhoff’s Voltage Law (KVL) states that around any loop in a circuit, the voltage rises must equal the voltage drops. The next law that Kirchhoff introduced was his current law. Kirchhoff’s Current Law (KCL) states that the total current entering a junction must equal the total current leaving the junction. These laws, however, cannot be proven or tested without the aid of a multimeter. A multimeter is an instrument designed to measure electric current, voltage, and usually resistance, typically over several ranges of value. The multimeter has different programs to measure voltage, current, resistance, etc. produced from one of two types of circuits. The first type of circuit is a series circuit. A series circuit is a circuit in which the components are arranged end to end in such a way that the electric current flows through the first component, through the next component, and so on, until it reaches the source again. In contrast, a parallel circuit is a circuit in which the has more than one resistor and has multiple paths to move along. The main purpose of this lab was to prove the laws of Ohm and Kirchhoff. On another note, being able to take part in this lab taught my partner and I the fundamental skills of constructing series and parallel circuit and using a multimeter to calculate the current and voltage of a circuit. I believe that if we only have the basic materials to conduct electricity (such as resistors, alligator clip, cords, a multimeter, and a power source), then we can still prove the that the laws that Ohm and Kirchhoff established are in fact reliable sources for calculating data regarding certain electrical circuits. I’ve reached this hypothesis because Ohm’s laws and Kirchhoff’s two laws are supposed to be laws used for