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The magnetic field (marked B, indicated by red field lines) around wire carrying an electric current (marked I) Compass and wire apparatus showing Ørsted's experiment (video [1]) In electromagnetism, Ørsted's law, also spelled Oersted's law, is the physical law stating that an electric current induces a magnetic field. [2]
In this experiment, a static magnetic field runs through a long magnetic wire (e.g., an iron wire magnetized longitudinally). Outside of this wire the magnetic induction is zero, in contrast to the vector potential, which essentially depends on the magnetic flux through the cross-section of the wire and does not vanish outside.
The magnetic field of permanent magnets can be quite complicated, especially near the magnet. The magnetic field of a small [note 6] straight magnet is proportional to the magnet's strength (called its magnetic dipole moment m). The equations are non-trivial and depend on the distance from the magnet and the orientation of the magnet.
If the wire is straight, then the magnetic field is curled around it like the gripped fingers in the right-hand rule. If the wire is wrapped into coils, then the magnetic field inside the coils points in a straight line like the outstretched thumb in the right-hand grip rule. [14]
The definitions for monopoles are of theoretical interest, although real magnetic dipoles can be described using pole strengths. There are two possible units for monopole strength, Wb (Weber) and A m (Ampere metre). Dimensional analysis shows that magnetic charges relate by q m (Wb) = μ 0 q m (Am).
The unit was established by the IEC in the 1930s [4] in honour of Danish physicist Hans Christian Ørsted.Ørsted discovered the connection between magnetism and electric current when a magnetic field produced by a current-carrying copper bar deflected a magnetised needle during a lecture demonstration.
Magnetism is the class of physical attributes that occur through a magnetic field, which allows objects to attract or repel each other.Because both electric currents and magnetic moments of elementary particles give rise to a magnetic field, magnetism is one of two aspects of electromagnetism.
Whether a physical effect is attributable to an electric field or to a magnetic field is dependent upon the observer, in a way that special relativity makes mathematically precise. For example, suppose that a laboratory contains a long straight wire that carries an electrical current.