Recent content by Ruptor

The electrons form a cloud around the nucleus and clouds are not fixed. The frog suspended in a magnetic field is a classic demonstration that dipoles can be created within atoms that are not ferromagnetic. http://www.physics.org/facts/frog-really.asp If there is an electron it can be moved...

All I am doing is asking questions assuming that experts here will already know the answers and offering ideas if I don't get the explanations. Isn't that the point of forums so one can learn? If I don't get answers then I pursue it on my own. Has there ever been an experiment that spins a disc...

It sounds right when you put it like that but iron doesn't have any charge and yet the structure of electrons in iron can be arranged to give a magnetic field. So if one spins a different element fast enough that has orbiting electrons they would be forced out or their orbits would be stretched...

Anybody have any idea whether moving matter creates a magnetic field? Perhaps the overall neutral charge means no charge is being moved so no field.

A moving electron makes a magnetic field so moving matter that is full of electrons should make a magnetic field. Magnetars are a cosmic example but has a magnetic field ever been measured from a moving object on earth. An experiment that springs to mind is the 200lb gyroscope that Professor...

Isn't the speed of light a constant. Having said that if the light takes longer to pass through say glass then it must be traveling further.

I find it difficult to visualise how the magnetic field generated by a coil can be the same as the field of a permanent magnet. Are the magnetic fields the same or is it just that the effects are the same in that they both attract iron or magnets in the same fashion? Visualising the field...

Thanks Khashishi the penny has finally dropped. Once you mentioned photons I realized I was thinking about the lines in terms of electrons and not light.

The electron has a magnetic moment therefore has to be affected by the applied magnetic field so how can there be a middle line?

Thanks for answering but I don't understand why the middle line is present. I have read about the Zeeman effect here http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/quantum/zeeman.html but none of this explains what the middle line represents so can someone explain it in simple English for me...

Why is there a central line when a magnet is used to split the electrons? I would have thought that since electrons have two characteristic states that one type would go one way and the other type the other way so the middle should be blank.

Thanks for your explanations guys. I was under the impression that coils had greater inductance than straight wires but if it is the other way around then size of loop and the magnetic coupling across them is irrelevant to my original question. The answer is that the magnetic field around the...

Yes the wire has inductance but as Alephzero says the inductance of the wire in a very large loop doesn't account for the inductance. What I am getting at is if the loop is very large like 1000 miles the inductance is very large but the field across the loop decreases at a squared rate so at...

The standard explanation is that the magnetic field stores the energy but when I start considering different sizes of a single loop inductor with a current flowing in it things start to get a bit vague. As the loop diameter is increased the inductance goes up so the single loop can store more...

So I guess the relativistic increase in mass of the faster electrons in heavier elements is the reason the atomic masses don't go up in nice multiples of proton+neutron+electron masses in the periodic table.