What’s your favorite value of resistor? 1K? 10K? They’re all fine, but when you need nearly no resistance at all, nothing beats the good old zero-ohm resistor. Wait a minute! Resistors are ...

For example, if all the resistors were actually 1K except for one that was 5% low (950 ohms), the low resistor will dissipate almost 3.15 watts.

When n = 2 resistors the possible permutations are two values (Figure 1). Two resistors, two combinations. That's easy. When n = 3, there are four possible arrangements. A tip for quick calculation – ...