Detecting a Magnetic Field
Short Description of Topic
The Main Idea
A compass can be used to determine the magnetic field in a wire. If a compass is not in the proximity of any iron or steel object, the compass will naturally point in the direction of the Earth's magnetic north pole. If a current carrying wire is brought near the compass, the compass needle will deflect.
A Mathematical Model
A useful attribute of a compass is that you can calculate the the magnetic field of current carrying wire when you figure out the deflection angle. This equation is: [math]\displaystyle{ B_{wire}=B_{earth} tan(\theta) }[/math] where [math]\displaystyle{ \theta }[/math] is the deflection angle, [math]\displaystyle{ B_{earth} }[/math] is the earth's magnetic field which is a constant value of 2e-5 Tesla.
A Computational Model
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