Effective Resistance

The resistance of a resistor is fixed - it does not depend on frequency.

The fact that the effective resistances of inductors and capacitors depend on frequency means you can make some useful circuits by combining resistors with inductors and/or capacitors.

The reactances (effective resistances) of the inductor and the capacitor are shown above as a function of frequency. Which graph is which?

  1. The red one is the inductive reactance; the blue one is the capacitive reactance.
  2. The blue one is the inductive reactance; the red one is the capacitive reactance.

















The inductive reactance is proportional to frequency, so that's the blue curve.
XL = ωL

The capacitive reactance is inversely proportional to frequency, so that's the red curve.
XC =
1
ωC