Demonstrations

Stephan's Law - Resistance of Light Bulbs

Code Number :	5D20.31
Disclaimer:	Reprinted by permission of Dick Berg, University of Maryland, for use on this website. The demonstrations contained and referenced herein are listed for the purposes of cataloging and describing physics demonstrations which should be conducted only under the direction of a trained instructional support professional or physicist. These demonstrations are not presented for the purpose of being conducted by persons unconnected to this Facility and/or persons not consulting with or being supervised by the recognized instructional support professional or physicist and his/her staff. The University is responsible only for those demonstrations carried out using its own equipment using established safety and scheduling policies, and bears no responsibility for those choosing to use this source material for their own purposes. All demonstrations described and contained herein are public domain, and can also be found in reference materials in libraries, bookstores, and electronic sources. Further information regarding legal liability in use of demonstrations and labs will be found on the web site Injuries in School/College Laboratories in USA. The University of Iowa Disclaimers: University of Iowa Disclaimer All Rights Reserved..
Condition :	Excellent
Principle :	Temperature vs. Resistance
Area of Study :	Electricity & Magnetism
Equipment :	Variac, "Stephan's Law" light bulb, multimeters.
Procedure :	Plot current and voltage in 5 or 10 volt intervals from 0 to 120 volts. Plot this on a spread sheet along with the calculated value of the resistance. You should see a very dramatic rise in resistance as a function of current, which can be related to resistance as a function of temperature.

References

Biswajit Ray, "Don't Zap That Light Bulb", TPT, Vol. 44, # 6, p. 374, Sept. 2006.

Fred Inman, "A Simple Laboratory Experiment to Measure e/k", TPT, Vol. 43, # 1, Jan. 2005, p. 27 - 28.

Biman Das, "Obtaining Wien's Displacement Law from Planck's Law of Radiation", TPT, Vol. 40, # 3, Mar. 2002, p. 148 - 149.

V. J. Menon and D. C. Agrawal, "Lifetimes of Incandescent Bulbs", TPT, Vol. 41, Feb. 2003, p. 100 - 101.

Bruce Denardo, "Temperature of a Lightbulb Filament", TPT, Vol. 40, # 2, Feb. 2002, p. 101 - 105.

Ernest Zebrowski, Jr., "The Lamp in the Laboratory", TPT, Vol. 38, # 4, Apr. 2000, p. 198.

Mark P. Silverman and Christopher R. Silverman, "Cool in the Kitchen: Radiation, Conduction, and the Newton "Hot Block" Experiment", Vol. 38, # 2, Feb. 2000, p. 82 - 88.

Dan Maclsaac, Gary Kanner, and Grayaon Anderson, "Basic Physics of the Incandescent Lamp (Lighbulb)", TPT, Vol. 37, # 9, Dec. 1999, p. 520 - 523.

Takao Takeuchi, "A Cool(ing) Idea", TPT, Vol. 36, # 8, Nov. 1998, p. 512.

Steven A. Waltner and Thomas A. Lehman, "When is Ohm's Law Valid?", TPT, Vol. 31, # 2, Feb. 1993, p. 102 - 103.

David G. Fisher, "Diode Characteristics to Determine Boltzmann Constant", TPT, Vol. 30, # 5, May 1992, p. 315 - 316.

William S. Wagner, "Temperature and Color of Incandescent Lamps", TPT, Vol. 29, # 3, Mar. 1991, p. 176 - 177.

Edward V. Lee, "Determination of Boltzmann's Constant", TPT, Vol. 13, # 5, May 1975, p. 305.

B. S. N. Prasad and Rita Mascarenhas, "A Laboratory Experiment on the Application of Stefan's Law to Tungsten Filament Electric Lamps", AJP, Vol. 46, # 4, Apr. 1978, p. 420 - 423.

D. H. Jaecks, R. Du Bois, "Stefan-Boltzmann and Radiation Distribution Laws in the Laboratory", AJP, Vol. 40, # 8, Aug. 1972, p. 1179 - 1180.

J. Dryzek and K. Ruebenbauer, "Planck's Constant Determination from Black-Body Radiation", AJP, Vol. 60, # 3, Mar. 1992, p. 251 - 253.

Vittorio Zanetti, "Temperature of Incadescent Lamps", AJP, Vol. 53, # 6, June 1985, p. 546 - 548.

"Lamp Resistance", Dick and Rae Physics Demo Notebook, 04-93.

"Light Bulbs and Log-Log Plot", Dick and Rae Physics Demo Notebook, 03-93.

Slavko Kocijancic and Colm O'Sullivan, "Are Dead Chickens Ohmic?", Physics Education, Vol. 39, # 1, Jan. 2004, p. 69 - 73.

W. T. Plummer, "Experiment B27. Stefan-Boltzmann Law", Laboratory of Astrophysics and Physical Meteorology, John Hopkins University, p. 246 - 250.

John H. Moore, Christopher C. Davis, Michael A. Coplan, Sandra C. Greer, "Continuum Sources", Second Edition Building Scientific Apparatus, p. 196 - 198.

Jearl Walker, "Simple and Vivid Demonstrations of Advanced Concepts in Physics", The Amateur Scientist, 1983.

Mail Questions and Comments to: Dale Stille