Two students are arguing about the purpose of circuit breakers?....?

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larry

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Two students are arguing about the purpose of circuit breakers?
Student 1: Circuit breakers are there to protect the wires in your house. If you hook up too many appliances the current will get too large for the wires to handle.

Student 2: No, the wires are mad to handle more current than your appliances. The circuit breakers are there to protect your appliances. If you hook up too many appliances, the current through them will be too much and they will burn up.

Do you agree with student 1 or student 2, or neither? Explain your reasoning.
 
I agree with student 1... circuit breakers are there to protect the wires.

Appliances only draw what current they need. Therefore, the "hook up too many appliances, the current through them is too much" argument is wrong.

Also, appliances are hooked up to the house via a parallel circuit. If you sketch that out, you'll see the "weak" point is the wiring. Yes, you can overload the wires that they heat up and melt.

Using Ohm's Law
V = i x R

current, i = V /R

For a parallel circuit, (1/Requivalent) = (1/R1) + (1/R2) + (1/R3)... etc.

Each appliace can be viewed as an R
The more R's you add, the lower R equivalent will be.
so the current, i = V/Requivalent will become larger to the point where the wires fry.
 
Appliances will only draw the current they are designed to draw. For this reason, Student #2 is wrong and should be taken out back and beaten with a heavy object until unconscious.

Circuit breakers are there to protect the wiring, switches, etc from shorting out.
 
it sounds like they are both arguing the same point, but using different wording. the only difference is protecting wires and protecting appliances. i agree with student 1, i guess... bc it makes more sense to me.
 
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