Experiment: Checking Biot-Savart's Law

AI Thread Summary
Biot-Savart's law can be experimentally checked by measuring the magnetic field strength around current-carrying wires and comparing it to theoretical predictions. While the law is derived from historical observations, its differential form cannot be directly tested, only inferred from the integral form. The integral form, established by Laplace, has been confirmed in specific cases but cannot be universally proven. The discussion highlights the challenges of validating the law with practical experiments, particularly regarding the limitations of wire thickness. Overall, the focus remains on understanding the experimental basis behind Biot-Savart's law rather than seeking a definitive proof.
pardesi
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how does one experimentally check biot-savart's law
 
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Maybe you could time travel back to the early 19th century when people actually cared?

Or you could enroll in a freshman physics laboratory class where no one cares about anything.
 
no isn't it imp...
well why i asked is it holds only for 'thin' wires and are the wires which we normally use sufficient to test it's validity
 
Why can't you just measure the magnetic field strength and see if it matches the theoretical calculations at that particular position?

Besides, like Coulomb's Law, isn't B-S law a phenomenological law historically? So it CAME out of experimental observations in the first place.

Zz.
 
pardesi said:
how does one experimentally check biot-savart's law
The differential form of the B-S law cannot be tested, but can only be inferred from the integral form. The integral form was first written down by Laplace, based on the experiments of B and S with closed circuits. Because of its general nature, it can only be confirmed for specific cases (always passing so far) but not "proven" in general.
 
thanks for that i just wanted to see the experiments behind it ...
and ofcourse not a 'proof'
 
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