Magnetic Effect of an Electric Current

[tua28494]

Two long straight wires are suspended vertically the wires are connected in series and a current from a battery is maintained in them. What happens to the wires? What happens if the battery is replaced by an a-c source.

This is a crude schematic of the circuit.

----|i|i----
| ` ` ` ` `| so what this shows is that the veritcal wires are geometricaly
| ` ` ` ` `| parallel. This circuit is not a rigid body either, the wires are not
| ` ` ` ` `| fixed to their initial positions and can act accordingly to the
| ` ` ` ` `| forces applied to them.
|________|

EQUATIONS:
F= iLxB vector quantities.


Alright what I think is that the current's directions are opposite in each blue vertical wire. the forces acting on each wire due to the other are directed outward. So I would say the wires repel.

Im unsure about this but even though the current is alternating, since the wires are in parallel the current will still be going down on and up the other resulting in the wires repelling each other.

 

[Delphi51]

You are correct! If the AC frequency was very low, you would see some vibration because the current is close to zero for part of each cycle.