Electric current with respect to ground. Ohm's law states that the current through a conductor between two points is directly proportional to the potential difference across the two points. Introducing the constant of proportionality, the resistance, one arrives at the usual mathematical equation that describes this relationship: where "I" is the current through the conductor in units of amperes, "V" is the potential difference measured "across" the conductor in units of volts, and "R" is the resistance of the conductor in units of ohms. More specifically, Ohm's law states that the "R" in this relation is constant, independent of the current. In
Electrical conductor American wire gauge article contains a table showing allowable ampacities for a variety of copper wire sizes The ampacity of a conductor, that is, the amount of current it can carry, is related to its electrical resistance: a lower-resistance conductor can carry a larger value of current. The resistance, in turn, is determined by the material the conductor is made from (as described above) and the conductor's size. For a given material, conductors with a larger cross-sectional area have less resistance than conductors with a smaller cross-sectional area. For bare conductors, the ultimate limit is the point at which power