Answer this essay question in your Word document. A typical incandescent light b

Question

Answer this essay question in your Word document. A typical incandescent light bulb has a filament consisting coil of tungsten wire that is itself wound into another coil (think of it as a long solenoid that is would into a solenoid). While cleaning out a shop, you find the remains of two shattered light bulbs. With the glass broken, there is no way to identity the wattage, but you decide to stretch out the filament. The first bulb's filament consists of about 40 cm of tungsten wire while the second bulb's filament consists of about 60 cm of tungsten wire. Which bulb had the higher wattage, and why?

Explanation / Answer

From the given situation, we can assume that both the bulbs had same turn density. i.e. number of turns per unuit length is the same for both. Let 'L' be the length of the solenoid. Each turn in the solenoid carries a current 'i'. Since there are 'nL' turns, the net current in the solenoid will be 'nL*i'. Hence the solenoid having greater length will have more current passing through it.

Both the bulbs will have been subjected to same input voltage which.

Power =V*I.

Hence the filament which has more current will have higher wattage than the other.

Hence the filament with 60 cm length will have higher wattage than that of the filament with 40 cm length.

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