Question

Why are copper and aluminum used to make electrical wires?

Answer 1

Hint: The job of wires is to conduct electricity, think of what property makes anything conduct electricity. Wires also need to be made into a particular shape, think what factors help in this process and write your answer accordingly.

Complete step by step answer:
Copper and aluminium are most frequently used as the electrical conductors in electrical cables due to their low resistance and excellent conductivity. These metals are both ductile and relatively resistant to corrosion, so they can be easily shaped into wires and they so not degrade over time. Copper alloys are sometimes used to improve the hardness of the copper, or to enhance the tensile strength, flex endurance and temperature resistance, the consequence of these additional alloying materials is to decrease the conductivity.
Aluminium is widely available and offers a cheaper alternative to copper for conductors. While it is only around $61\%$ as conductive as copper it is three times as lighter in weight, which makes it much easier to handle and is preferred where large cables are required.

Additional Information:
In fact, of the commonly found pure metals, only silver is more conductive than copper but it is considerably more expensive and not much stronger.

Note: One can argue that we can make wires out of any conductor, so why copper and aluminum?
Yes, we can make those, but it is not always logistically or economically feasible to do so , because of different physical properties like ductility and malleability, as well as cost of the conductor, also if the metal is corrosive, its protection is also an issue. moreover using a different material may result in instability in delicate electric systems which are setup for particular current/voltage/resistances and using a different material will likely cause a change in all these due to its changed resistivity, or we need to make wires of different dimensions which again will cause a problem in pre existing electrical systems.