à Term comes from the ancient Greek city of Magnesia, at

which many natural magnets were found. We now refer to

these natural magnets as lodestones (also spelled
loadstone; lode means to lead or to attract) which contain
magnetite, a natural magnetic material Fe3O4.

à Pliny the Elder (23-79 AD Roman) wrote of a hill near

the river Indus that was made entirely of a stone that
attracted iron.
à Chinese as early as 121 AD knew that an iron rod
which had been brought near one of these natural
magnets would acquire and retain the magnetic
property…and that such a rod when suspended from a
string would align itself in a north-south direction.

à Use of magnets to assist in direction-finding can be

traced back to at least the eleventh century.
Basically, we knew the phenomenon existed and
we learned useful applications for it.

We did not understand it.

Tesla
Gauss
A magnet has a
‘magnetic field’
d i s t r i b u t e d
throughout
the surrounding
à Not until 1819 was a connection between electrical and
magnetic phenomena shown. Danish scientist Hans
Christian Oersted observed that a compass needle in the
vicinity of a wire carrying electrical current was deflected!

à In 1831, Michael Faraday discovered that a momentary

current existed in a circuit when the current in a nearby
circuit was started or stopped

à Shortly thereafter, he discovered that motion of a

magnet toward or away from a circuit could produce the
same effect.
à Joseph Henry (first Director
of the Smithsonian Institution)
failed to publish what he had
discovered 6-12 months before
Faraday
SUMMARY: Oersted showed that magnetic
effects could be produced by moving
electrical charges; Faraday and Henry
showed that electric currents could be
produced by moving magnets
 All magnetic
phenomena result
from forces between
electric charges in
motion.
à Ampere first suggested in 1820 that
magnetic properties of matter were due to tiny
atomic currents

à All atoms exhibit magnetic effects

à Medium in which charges are moving has

profound effects on observed magnetic forces
For most of our discussions, we
will assume the medium is empty
space, which is a reasonable
approximation of air in this
context.
THE SPHERE OF ARCHIMEDES
The magnetic compass
was brought to Europe
in the Middle Ages from
the Chinese who had
been using the compass
for over 1500 years
Methods used to create a magnet
 Stroking using a permanent magnet
n However, after
stroking the
screwdriver with a
magnet, the blade
itself becomes
magnetic and
attracts the paper
clips.
Heat is one way to remove magnetism.
 Pp
F= k
d2
1 TESLA = 10,000 GAUSSES
NUCLEUS
NUCLEUS
REPEL
ATTRACT
The source of electromagnetism is electricity
(current) flowing through a coil of wire.
A coil of wire can be made into a magnet by passing an electric current through it.

Without electricity, there Electric current applied to a coil creates a

is no magnetic force magnetic field
How can an electromagnet be made
stronger?
SOUTH POLE
An example of a very strong magnet
 Making a Magnet
The coil of wire has been attached to a
12 volt DC power source making an
extremely strong magnet.
The magnet is strong enough to
lift this 50 pound engine cylinder
head.
Saturation of a magnetic field occurs when an increase of electric current flow
does not increase the strength of the magnetic field as shown by the graph. The
knee of the curve is the point that saturation occurs.

Saturation Knee
Y- Axis
Increasing
Magnetic X
Force

X- Axis Increasing Electric

Current