- #36
zoobyshoe
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Voltage Drop said:Perfect! You explained it far better than I.
Great. That same explanation for the current in that set up was offered here a few years ago by a guy who claimed a friend of his had figured it out. So, I'm familiar with it and it makes perfect sense in explaining the results Faraday got that baffled him. Faraday did not publish this experiment during his lifetime. People learned of it when his notes or "diary" was published in 1932. I've seen photocopies of those pages and it's clear it doesn't occur to him that the 'return' flux out in the space around the magnet might be what's generating the current in one of the lead wires.
A "homopolar" generator is just another term for "unipolar" generator. All it means is one pole of the magnet is used. It's the Faraday motor run as a generator. The Faraday motor utilizes only one pole of the magnet. So, any generator that uses only one pole to generate the current is a "true" homopolar generator. If by "simple small magnet" all you mean is a short disk magnet ( as opposed to a long cylinder) you can still have a "homopolar" generator.TurtleMeister said:@VoltageDrop
It seems like what you are describing is not a true homopolar generator (simple small magnet?). The type of generator used to demonstrate the Faraday paradox is designed in such a way that cancellation prevents the magnet from inducing current in the lead wires. There is a very good demo for this on YouTube. The demo allows the magnet, disc, and commutator to rotate independently. Just go to YouTube and search for Faraday paradox.
If one lead goes to the center of the disk and the other to the edge, I don't see how you can arrange any ultimate cancellation. The asymmetry is built into the way you have to take the current from the disk.