Electronics Basics: Conductors and Insulators

Match conducting cores and insulating coverings to their jobs.

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For ordinary dry, room-temperature conditions, copper is a good conductor and plastic is a useful insulator. A wire can combine a metal core with a plastic covering. This does not make any damaged or unknown cable safe to touch. Study the picture, not real cables. Use pictures only. Never use wall outlets or put batteries in your mouth.

Worked example

The copper core carries current more readily than the plastic jacket. The jacket helps keep the conducting core separated from other things. Damaged cords need an adult's attention, not a student repair.

A schematic cutaway of a wire shows a copper conducting core inside a plastic insulating jacket. The picture identifies material roles, not the safety of any real cable.

Would you believe it?

LEDs make light without heating a wire filament until it glows. Their light comes from a semiconductor, a different method from an incandescent lamp.

Department of Energy: lighting technologies

Question 1 Which pictured material is a good conductor? The printed label Copper Dry plastic

Question 2 What is the plastic jacket's usual job? Insulate the metal core Supply energy Make current disappear

Question 3 Which part carries current more readily? The dry plastic jacket Both equally in this model The copper core

Question 4 Does a plastic covering make a damaged cable safe to investigate? Only if it is bright colored No Yes

Question 5 Which statement is more accurate? Material and conditions both matter Every material conducts equally Insulators can never conduct under any conditions

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