What is electrical resistance?

Question

What is electrical resistance?

Answer 1

In Laymans terms. Think of electricity as water in a pipe. the more resistance the smaller the pipe.so it takes more force(amps) to push it through depending on  pressure(voltage)  A lightbulb is a good example, there is so much resistance in the tungsten filiment, it heats white hot and gives you light!

Answer 2

The electrical resistance is the resistance of the electric current due to different factors as length of the conductor its density its cross-sectional area and it is because the atoms of the material as it resist the flow of electrons as it vibrates in its place so it makes a resistance to the flow of the current

Answer 3

the property of a material to resist (or impede, slow down) the flow of electrons through it. the higher the resistance the lower the current (or flow of electrons).

Answer 4

The other answers are pretty good (resistance is the degree to which something electricity is flowing through impedes its flow). In those answers, you can see that rate of flow (current) is determined by the resistance and the force applied (voltage).

Ohm's Law defines resistance as the ratio of the voltage to the current: R=V/I (or V=IR, etc.). This is obviously a linear relation. Where the voltage-vs.-current graph is nonlinear, you can only speak of "incremental resistance"--i.e., the slope of that V/I curve at any particular point (any particular infinitesimally small increment). A diode, for example, has a nonlinear V/I curve. To find the current through a diode in circuit with (linear) resistors, plot the intercept of their V/I curves (see the method of "load lines").

The unit of voltage is Joules (of energy) per Coulomb (of charge); the unit of current is Coulombs per second. So the unit of resistance is Joule-Seconds per Coulomb squared. Power comes out neatly, as the product of current times voltage, to be given in units of Joules of energy per second.

In this way, it can be seen that resistance and the quantities of current, voltage, power, and energy are all systematically related.