- #1
siddharth5129
- 94
- 3
I was just doing a read-through of my freshman griffith's electrodynamics textbook ( I found my comprehension of electrodynamics slipping again ... always gets me edgy ) and I find my self flummoxed yet again. So he goes through an example of magnetic forces lifting a weight, and shows how it's actually the source of emf that's doing the work against magnetic forces to keep the weight moving upwards. This makes perfect sense. So I find that it would make sense when applied to say, two bar magnets attracting one another, if the magnetic forces somehow acted against the microscopic dipole currents and reduce their strength. If the magnet was reinforced with a electric coil, then the source emf would be doing the work against the magnetic forces, no problem there. But if it isn't, do the dipole currents reduce in strength ( in this case, alignment, seeing as the dipole moments that contribute to ferromagnetism are quantized ), as i am forced to conclude? Or am i missing something here? An iron magnet doesn't have an in built source of emf that does the work does it ?