Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hi there,

I have conducted the experiment and have my results.

The average of the three tests are as follows:

Distilled water - 43.5
Tap water - 21.5
sports drink - 21
orange juice - 106.2

I then did the conversion. For the distilled water I divided by 100000. The rest I divided by 1000.

Distilled water - .00004357
Tap water - .00717
sports drink - .021
orange juice - .1062

I'm kind of lost what to do now. Do I divide those numbers by the 9 volts? Please help

Yes, conductance = current / voltage. You measured the current and the voltage is 9V from the battery.

Thank - you so much for your reply

So I simply - for example:

Distilled water - .00004357 / 9 = 4.84

what is the unit after these conversions? siemens?

One more question. Do my results look as they should? I hope so!

Actually, I think you meant 0.00000484111111, not 4.84. Yes, the units are Siemens. You can convert to more manageable number by converting to nanosiemens (nS) and you have 4841.11 nS.

I haven't done the project myself so I can't say whether the data is good or not. Sorry - maybe someone else reading this has done it. It seems reasonable that you found orange juice to be more conductive.