Jump starting a car: A charged car battery is to be connected by jumper cables to a discharged car battery (a “dead” battery). To force current through the discharged battery, the two positive terminals and the two negative terminals are connected with each other. The charged battery has an emf of 12.0 V, the discharged one has an emf of 11.0 V. The internal resistance of each battery is 0.020 Ω. The resistance in each of the two wires of the jumper cable is 0.005 Ω. b) What will be the charging current? Why does the result not depend on the exact location of the four resistors in the circuit? c) What will be the current if the batteries are connected incorrectly, i.e. if terminals of opposite signs are connected? Why would this be a bad idea? Often modern car battery charging instructions have you connect two of the jumper cable wires to a grounding point on the body of each of the cars, rather than the negative battery terminals. Why is the body of the car equivalent to the negative battery terminals?

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1. Jump starting a car: A charged car battery is to be connected by jumper cables to a discharged car
battery (a “dead” battery). To force current through the discharged battery, the two positive terminals
and the two negative terminals are connected with each other. The charged battery has an emf of 12.0
V, the discharged one has an emf of 11.0 V. The internal resistance of each battery is 0.020 Ω. The
resistance in each of the two wires of the jumper cable is 0.005 Ω.


b) What will be the charging current? Why does the result not depend on the exact location of the
four resistors in the circuit?


c) What will be the current if the batteries are connected incorrectly, i.e. if terminals of opposite
signs are connected? Why would this be a bad idea?

Often modern car battery charging instructions have you connect two of the jumper cable wires
to a grounding point on the body of each of the cars, rather than the negative battery terminals.
Why is the body of the car equivalent to the negative battery terminals?

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