Abstract: The skin effect directly affects the transmission properties of wire, the attenuation pattern of electromagnetic wave in half unlimited conductor is usually used to describe the skin effect in wire, the qualitative description directly. This paper analyses the distribution of electric current in wire by solving the Maxwell equation and reaches a conclusion that there is skin effect in wire, and deduce the formula to calculate the AC resistance of isolated wire.

Key words: skin effect, transmission line for signals, Maxwell equation, AC resistance