7: Magnetic Forces and Fields
For the past few chapters, we have been studying electrostatic forces and fields, which are caused by electric charges at rest. These electric fields can move other free charges, such as producing a current in a circuit; however, the electrostatic forces and fields themselves come from other static charges. In this chapter, we see that when an electric charge moves, it generates other forces and fields. These additional forces and fields are what we commonly call magnetism.
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- 7.1: Prelude to Magnetic Forces and Fields
- Before we examine the origins of magnetism, we first describe what it is and how magnetic fields behave. Once we are more familiar with magnetic effects, we can explain how they arise from the behavior of atoms and molecules, and how magnetism is related to electricity. The connection between electricity and magnetism is fascinating from a theoretical point of view, but it is also immensely practical, as shown by an industrial electromagnet that can lift thousands of pounds of metal.
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- 7.2: Magnetism and Its Historical Discoveries
- Magnetism has been known since the time of the ancient Greeks, but it has always been a bit mysterious. You can see electricity in the flash of a lightning bolt, but when a compass needle points to magnetic north, you can’t see any force causing it to rotate. People learned about magnetic properties gradually, over many years, before several physicists of the nineteenth century connected magnetism with electricity.
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- 7.3: Magnetic Fields and Lines
- Even though there are no such things as isolated magnetic charges, we can still define the attraction and repulsion of magnets as based on a field. In this section, we define the magnetic field, determine its direction based on the right-hand rule, and discuss how to draw magnetic field lines.
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- 7.4: Motion of a Charged Particle in a Magnetic Field
- A charged particle experiences a force when moving through a magnetic field. What happens if this field is uniform over the motion of the charged particle? What path does the particle follow? In this section, we discuss the circular motion of the charged particle as well as other motion that results from a charged particle entering a magnetic field.
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- 7.5: Magnetic Force on a Current-Carrying Conductor
- Moving charges experience a force in a magnetic field. If these moving charges are in a wire—that is, if the wire is carrying a current—the wire should also experience a force. However, before we discuss the force exerted on a current by a magnetic field, we first examine the magnetic field generated by an electric current. We are studying two separate effects here that interact closely: A current-carrying wire generates a magnetic field and the magnetic field exerts a force on the wire.
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- 7.6: Force and Torque on a Current Loop
- Motors are the most common application of magnetic force on current-carrying wires. Motors contain loops of wire in a magnetic field. When current is passed through the loops, the magnetic field exerts torque on the loops, which rotates a shaft. Electrical energy is converted into mechanical work in the process.
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- 7.8: Applications of Magnetic Forces and Fields
- Being able to manipulate and sort charged particles allows deeper experimentation to understand what matter is made of. We first look at a mass spectrometer to see how we can separate ions by their charge-to-mass ratio. Then we discuss cyclotrons as a method to accelerate charges to very high energies.