A highly resistive cube

You have a cube, and each vertex is connected to each of the other seven vertices via 1 k Ω 1k\Omega resistors.

What is the effective resistance between any two vertices (in ohms)?


The answer is 250.

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2 solutions

Mark Hennings
Nov 13, 2016

If an electrical network is created using the complete graph K n K_n , with 1 Ω 1 \,\Omega resistors on each edge, then the effective resistance R n R_n between any two vertices is the same (by symmetry), and the effective graph resistance of K n K_n is n 1 n-1 , so that ( n 2 ) R n = n 1 {n \choose 2}R_n \; = \; n-1 which means that R n = 2 n 1 R_n = 2n^{-1} . In this case ( n = 8 n=8 , with 1 1 k Ω \Omega resistors), we see that the effective resistance is 2 8 × 1000 = 250 Ω \tfrac28 \times 1000 = \boxed{250} \,\Omega .

Geoff Pilling
Jul 6, 2016

If you apply 1 1 V to one node and ground another node, then by symmetry, all the remaining nodes will be at 0.5 0.5 V. So the total current going out through the grounded node will be 0.5 0.5 times the number of nodes that are at 0.5 0.5 V added to 1 1 times the node to which 1 1 V was applied. So I = ( 6 0.5 + 1 1 ) / 1000 = 1 / 250 I = (6*0.5 + 1*1)/1000 = 1/250 . So, the effective resistance will be: R e = 250 ohms R_e = \boxed{250} \mbox{ohms}

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