Ohm's law, in the form above, is an extremely useful equation in the field of electrical/electronic engineering because it describes how voltage, current and resistance are interrelated on a "macroscopic" level, that is, commonly, as circuit elements in an electrical circuit. Physicists who study the electrical properties of matter at the microscopic level use a closely related and more general vector equation, sometimes also referred to as Ohm's law, having variables that are closely related to the V, I, and R scalar variables of Ohm's law, but which are each functions of position within the conductor. Physicists often use this continuum form of Ohm's Law: