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Q.State Kirchhoff's laws for an electrical network. Using these laws, deduce the condition for balance in a Wheatstone Bridge.

Telangana TsbieTelangana Board of Intermediate Education 2018Subjective· 8mImportance★★★★★
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Kirchhoff's junction and loop rules, applied to the four arms of a Wheatstone bridge, give the balance condition P/Q = R/S at which the galvanometer shows zero deflection.

Kirchhoff's Laws:

  1. Junction rule (Kirchhoff's Current Law, KCL): At any junction in an electrical circuit, the algebraic sum of all currents meeting at that junction is zero, i.e. the sum of currents entering a junction equals the sum of currents leaving it. This follows from conservation of charge — charge cannot accumulate indefinitely at a junction in steady state.

    ∑I=0 (at a junction)\sum I = 0 \text{ (at a junction)}

  2. Loop rule (Kirchhoff's Voltage Law, KVL): Around any closed loop in a circuit, the algebraic sum of the changes in potential (the products of current and resistance, IRIR) together with the EMFs in that loop is zero. This follows from conservation of energy — the electric potential is a single-valued function of position, so going around any closed loop must bring you back to the same potential.

    ∑ε=∑IR (around a closed loop)\sum \varepsilon = \sum IR \text{ (around a closed loop)}

Wheatstone bridge balance condition:

A Wheatstone bridge consists of four resistances P,Q,R,SP, Q, R, S arranged in a diamond (rhombus) shape: PP and QQ form one pair of adjacent arms, RR and SS the other, with a galvanometer GG connected across the bridge's diagonal (between the junction of P,QP,Q and the junction of R,SR,S), and a battery connected across the other diagonal, driving current through the network.

Let the bridge be balanced, meaning no current flows through the galvanometer (Ig=0I_g = 0). Let I1I_1 flow through PP then RR, and I2I_2 flow through QQ then SS (since with Ig=0I_g = 0, the current through PP equals the current through RR, and the current through QQ equals the current through SS, by the junction rule).

Applying the loop rule to the loop containing PP, GG (with Ig=0I_g = 0, so no IRIR drop across GG) and QQ:

I1P=I2Q...(i)I_1 P = I_2 Q \quad \text{...(i)}

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