My book(Concise Physics ICSE) mentions the following things about the dependence of resistance on the material of conductor:-
Dependence on the material of conductor:Different materials have different concentration of free electrons and therefore the resistance of a conductor depends on its material . Metals such as silver , copper , aluminium , lead , etc. have the concentration of free electrons in the decreasing order , so their identical wires offer resistance in the increasing order .
My doubt is regarding the following Statement:
Metals such as silver,copper , aluminium , lead , etc. have the concentration of free electrons in the decreasing order , so their identical wires offer resistance in the increasing order
This implies that since silver has high number of free electrons so it offers low resistance.My doubt arises that since silver has greater number of free electrons the number of electron collisions with the positive ions of silver would also be greater which should lead to higher resistance (since greater number of free electrons means greater numbers of collisions) but the opposite happens (ie,silver offers lower resistance rather than higher resistance). So my first question is how come silver with greater number of free electrons has low resistance? In the same way how lead with lower number of free electrons has higher resistance?