Power dissipated in resistance networks

JEE Advanced 2008 Paper 1, Question 25

The figure below shows three resistor configurations R1, R2 and R3 connected to $3 \mathrm{~V}$ battery. If the power dissipated by the configuration R1, R2 and R3 is P1, P2 and P3 respectively, then

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$P1 > P2 > P3$
$P1 > P3 > P2$
$P2 > P1 > P3$
$P3 > P2 > P1$

Solution

The power dissipated by a resistance network is

(1) $\begin{equation*} P = \frac{V^2}{R} . \end{equation*}$

The potential applied to all three networks arre the same, so we just need to find the resistances. Of circuits R2 and R3, the latter has a greater resistance since

(2) $\begin{equation*} % R_3 = 1 \, \Omega + \frac{2 \, \Omega \cdot 2 \, \Omega}{2 \, \Omega + 2 \, \Omega} = 2 \, \Omega , R_3 = 1 \, \Omega + \left( \frac{1}{2 \Omega} + \frac{1}{2 \Omega} \right)^{-1} = 2 \, \Omega , \end{equation*}$

whereas

(3) $\begin{equation*} % R_2 = \frac{1 \, \Omega \cdot 1 \, \Omega}{1 \, \Omega + 1 \, \Omega} = 0.5 \, \Omega . R_2 = \left( \frac{1}{1 \Omega} + \frac{1}{2 \Omega} + \frac{1}{2 \Omega} \right)^{-1} = 0.5 \, \Omega. \end{equation*}$

The first circuit can be redrawn in the following way to make the comparison easier.

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From the second figure we see that the network R1 is a perfectly balanced Wheatstone bridge, which means no current flows through the resistance connected between points $B$ and $D$ . We can also argue this by symmetry of the circuit, similar to what we did for this problem. Therefore, the network has an effective resistance

(4) $\begin{equation*} R_1 = \left( \frac{1}{2 \Omega} + \frac{1}{2 \Omega} \right)^{-1} = 1 \, \Omega . \end{equation*}$

Therefore $R_2 < R_1 < R_3 \implies P_2 > P_1 > P_3$ , which means option (C) is correct.

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