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Wheatstone bridge

A Wheatstone bridge has four resistors forming the sides of a diamond shape. A battery is connected across one pair of opposite corners, and a galvanometer across the other pair.
Wheatstone bridge circuit diagram. The unknown resistance Rx is to be measured; resistances R1, R2 and R3 are known, where R2 is adjustable. When the measured voltage VG is 0, both legs have equal voltage ratios: R2/R1 = Rx/R3 and Rx= R3R2/R1.

A Wheatstone bridge is an electrical circuit used to measure an unknown electrical resistance by balancing two legs of a bridge circuit, one leg of which includes the unknown component. The primary benefit of the circuit is its ability to provide extremely accurate measurements (in contrast with something like a simple voltage divider).[1] Its operation is similar to the original potentiometer.

The Wheatstone bridge was invented by Samuel Hunter Christie (sometimes spelled "Christy") in 1833 and improved and popularized by Sir Charles Wheatstone in 1843.[2] One of the Wheatstone bridge's initial uses was for soil analysis and comparison.[3]

  1. ^ "Circuits in Practice: The Wheatstone Bridge, What It Does, and Why It Matters", as discussed in this MIT ES.333 class video
  2. ^ Wheatstone, Charles (1843). "XIII. The Bakerian lecture.—An account of several new instruments and processes for determining the constants of a voltaic circuit". Phil. Trans. R. Soc. 133: 303–327. doi:10.1098/rstl.1843.0014.
  3. ^ Ekelof, Stig (February 2001). "The Genesis of the Wheatstone Bridge" (PDF). Engineering Science and Education Journal. 10 (1): 37–40. doi:10.1049/esej:20010106. discusses Christie's and Wheatstone's contributions, and why the bridge carries Wheatstone's name.

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