Friday, May 16, 2014

Biot Savart Law

     The first thing we did in class on Wednesday was learn how to derive an expression for a magnetic field at a point a distance from an infinitely long wire. We then used that technique to come up with an expression for the magnetic field at a point in the center of a square made from four current carrying conductors. However, I think I may have made  an error in my calculation. 
 
     We also came up with an expression for the magnetic field at a point in the center of a current carrying loop. This expression was much simpler to come up with. 
 
     This is a picture of the setup of an experiment we conducted in which we were to approximate the horizontal component of the earth's magnetic field in the Physics 4B room.  We applied a small amount of current to the coil, recorded the angular displacement of the compass needle, and calculated the magnetic field in the center of the coil. We then made a graph of the magnetic field vs. angular displacement. The slope of this graph would be our approximation of the component of the earth's magnetic field which we were to determine.
     These are the calculations for the magnetic field at the center of the coil. We used these values as the four data points in our graph.
 
     This is the graph we ultimately came up with after conducting the previously described experiment. According to the graph, the component of the earth's magnetic field which we sought was on the order of 2.8*10^-5. Was this correct? I haven't the slightest idea, but it was very similar to values that other groups came up with. 
     The very last thing we did in lab was calculate the strength of the magnetic field at the center of a solenoid and compare it to the value that Professor Wolfe measured. The values were surprisingly close considering the "solenoid" used in the demonstration. 
 

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