Smile of the Day Wednesday, April 21, 2021

Wednesday April 21, 2021’s Smile of the Day: Electromagnetism

On this Day:

In 1820, Danish scientist Hans Christian Ørsted was the first to identify electromagnetism, when he observed a compass needle.

Electromagnetism is a branch of physics involving the study of the electromagnetic force, a type of physical interaction that occurs between electrically charged particles. The electromagnetic force is carried by electromagnetic fields composed of electric fields and magnetic fields, and it is responsible for electromagnetic radiation such as light. It is one of the four fundamental interactions (commonly called forces) in nature, together with the strong interaction, the weak interaction, and gravitation. At high energy the weak force and electromagnetic force are unified as a single electroweak force.

Lightning is an electrostatic discharge that travels between two charged regions.Electromagnetic phenomena are defined in terms of the electromagnetic force, sometimes called the Lorentz force, which includes both electricity and magnetism as different manifestations of the same phenomenon. The electromagnetic force plays a major role in determining the internal properties of most objects encountered in daily life. The electromagnetic attraction between atomic nuclei and their orbital electrons holds atoms together. Electromagnetic forces are responsible for the chemical bonds between atoms which create molecules, and intermolecular forces. The electromagnetic force governs all chemical processes, which arise from interactions between the electrons of neighboring atoms. Electromagnetism is very widely used in modern technology, and electromagnetic theory is the basis of electric power engineering and electronics including digital technology.

There are numerous mathematical descriptions of the electromagnetic field. Most prominently, Maxwell’s equations describe how electric and magnetic fields are generated and altered by each other and by charges and currents.

The theoretical implications of electromagnetism, particularly the establishment of the speed of light based on properties of the “medium” of propagation (permeability and permittivity), led to the development of special relativity by Albert Einstein in 1905.

Originally, electricity and magnetism were considered to be two separate forces. This view changed with the publication of James Clerk Maxwell’s 1873 A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism in which the interactions of positive and negative charges were shown to be mediated by one force. There are four main effects resulting from these interactions, all of which have been clearly demonstrated by experiments:

Electric charges attract or repel one another with a force inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them: unlike charges attract, like ones repel.

Magnetic poles (or states of polarization at individual points) attract or repel one another in a manner similar to positive and negative charges and always exist as pairs: every north pole is yoked to a south pole.An electric current inside a wire creates a corresponding circumferential magnetic field outside the wire. Its direction (clockwise or counter-clockwise) depends on the direction of the current in the wire.A current is induced in a loop of wire when it is moved toward or away from a magnetic field, or a magnet is moved towards or away from it; the direction of current depends on that of the movement.
In April 1820, Hans Christian Ørsted observed that an electrical current in a wire caused a nearby compass needle to move. At the time of discovery, Ørsted did not suggest any satisfactory explanation of the phenomenon, nor did he try to represent the phenomenon in a mathematical framework. However, three months later he began more intensive investigations. Soon thereafter he published his findings, proving that an electric current produces a magnetic field as it flows through a wire. The CGS unit of magnetic induction (oersted) is named in honor of his contributions to the field of electromagnetism.

His findings resulted in intensive research throughout the scientific community in electrodynamics. They influenced French physicist André-Marie Ampère’s developments of a single mathematical form to represent the magnetic forces between current-carrying conductors. Ørsted’s discovery also represented a major step toward a unified concept of energy.

This unification, which was observed by Michael Faraday, extended by James Clerk Maxwell, and partially reformulated by Oliver Heaviside and Heinrich Hertz, is one of the key accomplishments of 19th-century mathematical physics. It has had far-reaching consequences, one of which was the understanding of the nature of light. Unlike what was proposed by the electromagnetic theory of that time, light and other electromagnetic waves are at present seen as taking the form of quantized, self-propagating oscillatory electromagnetic field disturbances called photons. Different frequencies of oscillation give rise to the different forms of electromagnetic radiation, from radio waves at the lowest frequencies, to visible light at intermediate frequencies, to gamma rays at the highest frequencies.

Ørsted was not the only person to examine the relationship between electricity and magnetism. In 1802, Gian Domenico Romagnosi, an Italian legal scholar, deflected a magnetic needle using a Voltaic pile. The factual setup of the experiment is not completely clear, so if current flowed across the needle or not. An account of the discovery was published in 1802 in an Italian newspaper, but it was largely overlooked by the contemporary scientific community, because Romagnosi seemingly did not belong to this community.

An earlier (1735), and often neglected, connection between electricity and magnetism was reported by a Dr. Cookson. The account stated:

A tradesman at Wakefield in Yorkshire, having put up a great number of knives and forks in a large box … and having placed the box in the corner of a large room, there happened a sudden storm of thunder, lightning, &c. … The owner emptying the box on a counter where some nails lay, the persons who took up the knives, that lay on the nails, observed that the knives took up the nails. On this the whole number was tried, and found to do the same, and that, to such a degree as to take up large nails, packing needles, and other iron things of considerable weight …

E. T. Whittaker suggested in 1910 that this particular event was responsible for lightning to be “credited with the power of magnetizing steel; and it was doubtless this which led Franklin in 1751 to attempt to magnetize a sewing-needle by means of the discharge of Leyden jars” (per Wikipedia).

First, a Story:

I’m very pleased with my new fridge magnet.
So far I’ve got eight fridges.

Second, a Song:

The big application of magnetism these days is in high speed trains.  Billed as the fastest way to get around this planet, the speeds achieved and those which are theoretically possible are truly mind-boggling.

Here is a clip of a Maglev (Magnetic levitation) train, Japan’s JR Tokai Maglev, traveling from 0 to 500 kmph (311mph) from inside the train. I hope you enjoy this!

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CKwchJKTYU)

Thought for the Day:

“Magnetism, as you recall from physics class, is a powerful force that causes certain items to be attracted to refrigerators.” – Dave Barry

Cheers!

Have a great day!

Dave & Colleen

© 2021 David J. Bilinsky and Colleen E. Bilinsky