Ohm's Law for Dummies, by a Dummy

Ohm's Law

Occasionally, the researchers' cubicle farm here at the Antisocial Network erupts in a chorus of titters, giggles, and occasionally guffaws. When we hear that, we know that someone has shared a particularly amusing attempt by a J-school grad (or English Lit major) to reword scientific principles in their freelancing job. The most recent chuckle-fest, yesterday's, came at the expense of returning DotD Karize Uy of WiseGEEK.com. If you're curious, it's about how she attempted to explain "What Is Ohm's Law?"

Uy managed to come up with basics, that it's a law of physics defining the relationships among voltage, resistance, and current; although she clearly didn't know enough about the topic to provide a proper introduction:

"...a law used in physics that basically explains how electricity operates properly within a simple circuit."

Yeah, basically – but that "how electricity operates" bit is rather misleading. Karize then had a lot to say about who Ohm was and when he came up with his law, but that's not why the research staff was giggling. No, that's because of some of Uy's other rather entertaining ways of discussing Ohm's Law and electricity in general, passages such as,

• "...ampere, resistance, and voltage... work together to create a functioning electrical circuit." – Really? The three measurements "work together"?
• "Ohm’s Law can be written in a simple mathematical equation: I = V/R... In this equation, the resistance is usually a constant variable..." – Ummm, WTF is a "constant variable"? That's not to mention that in most applications, the voltage is constant – you know, like household current?

And finally, there's this bit of bogosity, courtesy of yet another J-school graduate trying to write about science:

"Using the formula R = V/I, one can determine that a resistor containing 200 ohms is needed to control the current..."

A resistor "containing" 200 ohms? Does this buffoon even know what an ohm is? And does she think that resistors "contain" little batches of ohms, the same way that computer memory contains boxes of gigabytes? Mercy: no wonder she's picking up her third Dumbass of the Day award!

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