Wheatstone bridge

A Wheatstone bridge is an measuring instrument invented by Sir Charles Wheatstone. It is used to measure an unknown electrical resistance by balancing two legs of a 'bridge circuit', one leg of which includes the unknown component.

Here, Rx is the resistance we want to measure; R1, R2 and R3 are known resistors of known resistance; furthermore, the resistance of R2 is adjustable. If the ratio of the two resistances in the known leg (R2/R1) is equal to the ratio of the two in the unknown leg (Rx/R3), then the voltage between the two midpoints will be zero and no current will flow between the midpoints. R2 is varied until this condition is reached. The current direction indicates if R2 is too high or too low.

Detecting zero current can be done to extremely high accuracy (see Galvanometer). Therefore, if R1, R2 and R3 are known to high precision, then Rx can be measured to high precision. Very small changes in Rx disrupt the balance and are readily detected.

The Wheatstone bridge illustrates the concept of a difference measurement, which can be extremely accurate.