DIY Magnetic Field Visualizer

hello physics students I want to show you how to make the magnetic field homework helper this was really useful to us in office hours today so here's what you're gonna need if you want to help visualize magnetic fields coming out of wires that are carrying current this helped us a lot in office hours today you'll need a piece of paper a pencil and some markers so step one is get yourself a circle take this piece of paper and fold it in half it doesn't have to be a perfect circle but you can make your own circle with whatever you have on hand just fold it a few times like that alright all I'm trying to do is make sure that when I start ripping the paper like this I can kind of rip a nice little circle around the pointy edge there okay you can cut yourself a fancier circle if you like but this is roughly circular now on the circle I'm going to draw some arrows okay this is gonna help us visualize the magnetic field so draw some circular pointing arrows that represent the magnetic field okay like that alright now on the backside of it you see how I can see the arrows through the other side that's perfect I want to be able to see both sides now take your pencil your pencil is going to represent a wire carrying current I'm in fact going to label mine all right so I'm gonna have the pointy end beware the currents coming out so I'm going to put a nice little arrow to remind myself currents going that direction and this is conventional current so I'm going to write very carefully on here conventional current conventional current okay just to remind myself and I know exactly which way currents going now here's the deal using the second right-hand rule you would have your thumb point in the direction of the current and then your fingers curl in the direction of the magnetic field so I want to replicate that with this handy-dandy magnetic field visualizer so take your magnetic field that you've drawn in a nice circular pattern this is going clockwise clockwise take the pointy end of your pencil and ready stab it down the middle okay once you've got it stabbed in now I have a handy-dandy magnetic field visualizer you see I've got conventional current running this way and all around it is this magnetic field that's going in the right direction let's just confirm that I'll align my thumb with the pencil and then I see that my fingers curl in the direction of the magnetic field so hopefully this will help you get your homework done tonight

Channel: Prof. Carlson

Views: 1,239

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: right hand rule, magnetic field, current, carrying, wire, magnetic, electricity, magnetism

Id: D2W6efT_QoE

Length: 2min 38sec (158 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 14 2017