[Physics] Why do we use a specific point to find the resistance of a non-ohmic conductor? Why not tangent

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Resistance of non-ohmic resistors

I was wondering why can't the tangent be used to do this calculation? Can a randomly chosen point be used?

Best Answer

The resistance $R$ of a circuit element as shown in your graphs is

$R = \dfrac{\text{potential difference across circuit element}}{\text{current passing through circuit element}} = \dfrac VI$

For the graphs that you have drawn the value of the resistance will depend on the current passing through the circuit element.
For the left hand characteristic the resistance decreases as the current increases and the right hand characteristic the resistance decreases as the current increases.
Note that for the right hand characteristic an increase in current produces a decrease in the potential difference

It is often more use to know what happens when the current or voltage changes by a small amount around a given value of current or voltage, these sometimes being called the working current or voltage.
That is when the gradient of the curve about the given value of current or voltage is measured to give the incremental resistance, small signal resistance, differential resistance etc where

$R_{\rm incremental} = \left (\dfrac {d V}{dI} \right )_{\text {V,I fixed}}$

Now for a small change in the current $\Delta I$ about that given value of current or voltage the change in the voltage $\Delta V$ is

$\Delta V \approx R_{\rm incremental}\,\Delta I = \left (\dfrac {d V}{dI} \right )_{\text {V,I fixed}}\, \Delta I$

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