How to work out the conductance of a wire?

) November 7th, 2009

What is the conductance of 25m of this wire

So I have worked out this is the formula
G=sigma x a / length
conductance= conductivity x area / length
conductance= 5.8×10^7 S m^-1×0.1964 / 25×10^-3
Now is this right? or do I have to convert 5.8×10^7 S m^-1, or have I made any other mistakes?

also while I’m at it my calculator keeps giving me fractions whenever I do a formula like this 0.5×10^-3 =½000 why?
it seems to only happen with – powers

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4 Answers

I know ½000 is the right answer but I want it to say 0.0005

Meagainandagin (45

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What kind of calculator are you using? Different calculators have different settings that tell the calculator to print the answer as a fraction or a decimal. On my TI83, i can go to the “math” menu and choose >frac to get a fraction, for example, if the output is a decimal. Tell me what calculator you have and I’ll see if I know how to fix the fraction problem.

You don’t really give us enough info in your question to answer the conductance problem. Check your units to make sure everything is consistent (meters and centimeters, for example), and give us more background info if you want more help. Also, if this is homework, we fluther-ites frown on giving answers directly, so be forewarned.

hannahsugs (3243

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I’m using a Casio fx-83ES, if I press s<>d it just gives me the question

Meagainandagin (45

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Hmm, I’m not familiar with Casio calculators, sorry. Poke around in the menus or online for some advice about how to get things to display properly.

hannahsugs (3243

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