8.10.1 Resistance Measurements
Techniques have been developed to measure resistances from 107 to over 1014 .
Needless to say, specialized instruments must be used at the extreme ends of this range.
We have already seen in Chapter 4 that very accurate resistance measurements are
commonly made using dc Wheatstone or Kelvin bridges and a dc null detector such as
an electronic nanovoltmeter. The values of the resistances used in the arms of these
bridges must, of course, be known very accurately. We shall discuss other dc means of
measuring resistance below.
The voltmeter-ammeter method is probably the most basic means of measuring
resistance. It makes use of Ohm’s law and the assumption that the resistance is linear.
As shown in Figure 8.62, there are two basic configurations for this means of
measurement—the ammeter being before RX, which is in parallel with the voltmeter,
and the ammeter being in series with RX after the voltmeter. In the first case, the ammeter
measures the current in the voltmeter as well as RX, while in the second case, the
voltmeter measures the voltage drop across the ammeter plus that across RX. It is easy to
show that in the first case, RX is given by: