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Maxwell's Laws Tour

Faraday's Magnetic Induction

Now that we have some other laws we can examime some of Faradays experiments and applications. Faraday continued his research into his "induced current" by noticing that he could generate a current in a totally separate wire by using a experiment he designed. He wrapped a wire around one side of a circular piece of metal and connected the wire to a battery and a switch so that he could control the current through the wire. On the other side of the metal he wrapped another coil of wire which formed a complete loop. Above the second wire he placed a magnet to detect if any current was flowing through the second wire. He found that the magnet over the second coil of wire would move when he either connected or disconnected the first wire to the battery but that the magnet rotated in opposite directions in each case. Look at the animation and see if you can explain why the magnet over the second wire rotates the way it does.