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Name: Jake
Status: student
Age: N/A
Location: MS
Country: N/A
Date: N/A
Question:
Even though permativity applies to both space and medium for dissipation of force and resistivity applies to a medium for dissipation of force, what is the difference between resistivity and permativity?


Replies:
Jake,

Resistivity can be thought of as a measure of how hard it is for electric current to pass through a material. If you have two identically structured objects, one made from a high resistivity material and one from low resistivity, you would require less energy to push a current through the low resistivity material.

Permittivity is more a measure of how easily an electric field can penetrate a portion of space. High permittivity means low electric field. In a very high permittivity material, electric charges have very little effect on each other. The atoms in the material align so as to negate the electric field. Two charges affect each other greatest when nothing but free space exists between them.

Dr. Ken Mellendorf
Physics Instructor
Illinois Central College


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