Magnetic fields do no work? How come

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the concept of magnetic forces and their ability to do work, particularly in the context of magnets interacting with each other. Participants explore the implications of the statement that "magnetic forces do no work," questioning its validity and seeking explanations for observed phenomena involving magnets. The scope includes theoretical considerations, conceptual clarifications, and some experimental insights.

Discussion Character

  • Debate/contested
  • Conceptual clarification
  • Exploratory

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants assert that magnetic forces do no work, referencing textbooks like Griffiths, but express confusion about how magnets can appear to exert forces and move toward each other.
  • Others argue that the statement about magnetic forces applies specifically to charged particles, where the force is perpendicular to motion, thus doing no work.
  • A participant questions what force causes magnets to move together if magnetic forces do not do work, suggesting the need for clarification on the source of energy in these interactions.
  • Some contributions highlight that energy is needed to change the separation of magnets, indicating a potential increase in magnetic potential energy, which can then do work.
  • One participant proposes an experiment involving a permanent magnet and a solenoid to investigate energy transfer and voltage changes, raising questions about the source of this energy.
  • Another participant critiques the teaching of the idea that magnetic fields do no work, suggesting that while it is true, it may not be useful for understanding complex interactions between magnets.
  • There is mention of the role of internal electric forces in the work done by magnets, indicating a more complex interplay than the simple assertion of magnetic forces doing no work.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants do not reach a consensus on whether magnetic forces can do work, with multiple competing views remaining. Some agree that magnetic forces do not do work on charged particles, while others assert that magnets can do work on each other, leading to an unresolved debate.

Contextual Notes

Participants express uncertainty regarding the definitions and assumptions underlying the statement that magnetic forces do no work, particularly in relation to complex systems involving multiple charges and forces. There are also unresolved questions about energy sources in various scenarios, such as the solar corona.

  • #61
Doc Al said:
Yes! Sounds good to me.

Very good. I'm glad we agree. This is an interesting thought problem. It gives us all a chance to review the theory and I feel I've gained a better understanding. Thanks for your input. BR.

Claude
 
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  • #62
cabraham said:
Very good. I'm glad we agree.
Me too! :smile:

This is an interesting thought problem. It gives us all a chance to review the theory and I feel I've gained a better understanding. Thanks for your input. BR.
Yes, it's interesting--and subtle--stuff. It helps me to review it every now and then. Good discussion!
 
  • #63
Doc Al said:
I may have to revise my answer to the Stern-Gerlach question in the light of the interesting paper that Academic linked to in post #56. (It might take me a while to find the time to digest it--hopefully someone more knowledgeable will chime in sooner.)

I missed that one. I have skimmed through that article, and it looks like the author doesn't actually answer the question, but gives some conditions under which the answer could be understood. I will have to read it more carefully however. It is interesting that this is a topic of current research though, so the question of whether or not a magnetic field can do work at a fundamental level really isn't settled.
 
  • #64
"The usual explanation
is that there is a change in the “potential energy” by
an amount −2s ·B=−eB/mc, which implies that the magnetic
field did work on the electron’s magnetic moment.
However, if the electron has rotational kinetic energy,"

This is a quote from the paper. He states the conventional explanation, but he puts forward his own conjecture " rotational kinetic energy".
 
  • #65
The forces of electromagnetism do work. Acceleration can occur along electric field lines and acceleration and also along magnetic field lines. However, because a cyclical process of doing work requires a changing magnetic field which in turns produces an electric field, electric fields are seen as crucial in order for work to be done. A changing displacement is sufficient for an electric field to do work, but not so for a magnetic field, which requires a change in magnitude in place (implying a change in electric field). Therefore when work is done using electricity or magnetism, an electric field ALWAYS comes into play, but same is not true for magnetic fields (because sometimes they are not used). It is a rare circumstance in the macroscopic world to have a system with truly constant magnetic fields (no induction) when electric fields are being moved relatively to each other...
 
  • #66
Hi
It might be out of date but I show here a interesting case, a charged particle attached on a elastic body, with velocity v in perpendicular direction, under magnetic field B in another perpendicular direction.
|
|wwwwwwwwwww○　↑ ｖ　 x B
|
Magnetic or Lorentz force pushes or pulls elastic body. It does work thus elastic energy would be stored.

I state from this example that magnetic force does not work on FREE charge, but it can work on charge UNDER CONSTRAINT.

The elastic body consists of multiple charged particles under electromagnetic interaction so we can say another way that magnetic force does not work on a system of SINGLE charge, but it can work on a system of MULTIPLE charges.

Regards
 
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  • #67
sweet springs said:
Hi
It might be out of date but I show here a interesting case, a charged particle attached on a elastic body, with velocity v in perpendicular direction, under magnetic field B in another perpendicular direction.
|
|wwwwwwwwwww○　↑ ｖ　 x B
|
Magnetic or Lorentz force pushes or pulls elastic body. It does work thus elastic energy would be stored.
Can you please describe the case you have in mind in more detail and explain why you think it illustrates a magnetic force doing work on a charged particle.
 
  • #68
OK, I will.
|
|wwwwwwwwwww○　↑ ｖ　 x B
|

the direction of Lorentz force is ←　or →　according to the sign of charge ○ and it pushes or pulls the elastic body or the spring.
Regards.
 
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  • #69
sweet springs said:
OK, I will.
|
|wwwwwwwwwww○　↑ ｖ　 x B
|

the direction of Lorentz force is ←　or →　according to the sign of charge ○ and it pushes or pulls the elastic body.
While the Lorentz force (at the moment pictured) is ←　or →, the motion of the charge is not. So the elastic material isn't being stretched yet.

An interesting case, but since the Lorentz force is always perpendicular to the velocity of the charge, I don't know why you'd say it's doing work on it. All it does is change the direction of motion of the charge, which may certainly end up stretching (or compressing) the elastic material due to the inertia of the charged mass. The only thing doing work on the charge is the elastic material.
 
  • #70
Hi.
Please teach me more.

A free charge motion draw a circle.

○xB○○○○○○○○○○
○○○○●●●○○○○○
○○○●○○○●○○○○
○○●○○○○○●○○○
○○●○○○○○●○○○
○○○●○○○●○○○○
○○○○●●●○○○○○
○○○○○○○○○○○○

In the case the spring with wheel moving up-down free in the figure, is tied to the charge, the spring is streched according to the motion of charge, isn't it?

｜○xB○○○○○○○○○○
◎ww w●●●○○○○○
｜○○○●○○○●○○○○
｜○○●○○○○○●○○○
◎ww●○○○○○●○○○
｜○○○●○○○●○○○○
｜○○○○●●●○○○○○
｜○○○○○○○○○○○○

In the case of No magnetic field

｜○○●○○○○○○○
◎ww●○○○○○
｜○○●○○○○○○○
｜○○●○○○○○○
◎ww●○○○○○○
｜○○●○○○○○○
｜○○●○○○○○○
｜○○●○○○○○○
｜○○●○○○○○○

No stretch of course. Don't these mean that magnetic force can stretch the spring?
Regards.
 
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  • #71
Does the magnetic force affect the motion of the charge and thus the stretch of the spring? Sure. Does the magnetic field do work on the charge? No. All it does is change the direction of motion of the charge. The energy of the system--elastic potential energy + kinetic energy--remains the same.
 
  • #72
Doc Al said:
Does the magnetic force affect the motion of the charge and thus the stretch of the spring? Sure. Does the magnetic field do work on the charge? No. All it does is change the direction of motion of the charge. The energy of the system--elastic potential energy + kinetic energy--remains the same.

Ok, so basically the energy is not added by this static magnetic field to the system (obviously). Instead, it just facilitates changes of potential energy into kinetic energy and vice versa.

Imagine a large magnetic field external to our solarsystem that changes only over the course of thousands of years. This "effectively static" magnetic field could give us an impression of anomalous effect on the movement of bodies in our solarsystem, but in such a way that the total energy, GPE + KE, is conserved. This would imply that magnetic fields can be used to facilitate the unleashing of potential energy, but that such potential energy does not come from the magnetic field itself.
 
  • #73
Expressing it a bit differently the charge has kinetic energy before being deflected and it has exactly the same kinetic energy after being deflected.Some of this kinetic energy is changed to elastic potential energy but the kinetic energy is not gained from the magnetic field,it is gained from the electric field that caused the charge to move in the first place.
 
  • #74
A magnetic dipole in an external magnetic field with a gradient will feel a force.

So, two ideal magnetic dipoles at rest can extert a force on each other.

That means two neutrons can exert a magnetic force on each other while they are at rest. If you don't like composite particles, then the same can be said with electrons (but there is also an electric force as well then, but you can set it up such that the forces are in orthoganol directions to make it clear which force did what).

I would consider that work legitimately done by a magnetic field.
... unless you want to claim an electron is not a point particle.
 
  • #75
Doc Al said:
Does the magnetic force affect the motion of the charge and thus the stretch of the spring? Sure. Does the magnetic field do work on the charge? No. All it does is change the direction of motion of the charge. The energy of the system--elastic potential energy + kinetic energy--remains the same.

Hm.. Let me pose one more question.

In the case of motion of charge in NO magnetic field

｜○○●○○○○○○
◎ww●○○○○○○
｜○○●○○○○○○
｜○○●○○○○○○
◎ww●↑○○○○○
｜○○●○○○○○○
｜○○●○○○○○○
｜○○●○○○○○○
｜○○●○○○○○○

By magnetic flux x B, the Lorentz force →　and the elastic force ←　balance,

x B
｜○○○○●○○○○
◎www ●○○○○
｜○○○○●○○○○
｜○○○○●○○○○
◎www ●↑○○○
｜○○○○●○○○○
｜○○○○●○○○○
｜○○○○●○○○○
｜○○○○●○○○○

So what caused the stretch of the spring therefore increase of elastic energy?

Regards.
 
  • #76
I'm not sure I understand your diagrams, but in any case.
sweet springs said:
By magnetic flux x B, the Lorentz force →　and the elastic force ←　balance,
No reason to think that those forces are balanced.

So what caused the stretch of the spring therefore increase of elastic energy?
The mass is moving.
 
  • #77
Here's my answer to elliotr's origininal question. (Please be kind if it doesn't make sense.)

First and formost, nobody knows what magnetism is. We just know how it behaves.

Second is how one looks at a problem. I think that all textbooks state that magnetism can't do real work directly same as gravity. What I mean by this is that people percieve the Earth as the center for gravity and do not do the same for magnets. Each magnet is its own gravity well. On Earth we can use a ground state like a sidewalk and base calculations from that level. A cannon ball falling from a building converts its potention energy to kinetic energy. This is where it gets tricky. The cannot ball got it's energy from somewhere other than gravity. The person who took the cannon ball to the top of the building is the source of that energy. So when the cannon ball falls and breaks the sidewalk nobody questions that it did work and had energy. The same can be said about a paperclip falling up to a magnet. It will do work on the surface of the magnet as it hits, but the energy would not have come from the magnet. The energy came from many processes that created and placed the paperclip just prior to being pull (or pushed) up by the magnet.

We don't even know if magnetism is a pulling or pushing force. Anyhow, if you think about a magnetic well that things can fall into and be pulled from, it starts to make more sense. Well, that's my two cents worth...
 
  • #78
Dipoles have come up a couple of times in this discussion, but I still don't quite get it.

We can calculate the torque due to the magnetic force on a dipole, m, in a uniform magnetic field, B, and calculate a corresponding energy in rotating the dipole -m.B.

We are only considering the magnetic forces here, yet they have appeared to do work.

One way to construct this situation is using spinning spherical shells; a uniformly charged sphere rotating at constant angular velocity has a constant, uniform magnetic field inside and a dipolar magnetic field outside. So we can put one spinning shell inside another, using the outer shell to produce the uniform magnetic field and the inner shell to represent the dipole.

It turns out that the inner shell produces a torque on the outer shell, and so under a rotation of the dipole this produces a work +m.B.

Thus we find (at least in this case) the TOTAL work done by magnetic fields is +m.B - m.B = 0.

However the justification that the magnetic force does no work is done particle-by-particle. I would have thought this implied that there should be no magnetic work in rotating a dipole in a uniform magnetic field. Why is this wrong?
 
  • #79
Fantispug, I think I covered this in Post #13. Is there something unclear that I should elaborate?
 
  • #80
Hi.

Doc Al said:
The mass is moving.

Now I know my misunderstanding. Another resource to keep mass moving in constant velocity is necessary. Thank you for your teachings. I apologize the delay of my thanks. I was wondering of the following another situation.

On X-Y plane there exists around the origin a ring of radius a. This ring is made of charge, the line density of which is ρ, and is rotating with angular velocity ω. Let homogeneous magnetic field of B of direction x be applied. The parts of circle get force in Z direction of －ρaωB cosφ　dl ＝ －ρa^2 ωB cosφ dφ where φ is the direction angle in X-Y plane.

Does the ring start to rotate around the Y axis (stand up) therefore get rotation energy under the influence of magnetic force which keep perpendicular to the motion of charge i.e. rotating around Z and perhaps Y axes ?
If yes, does this Y rotation energy come from the work done by the magnetic field ,or just from the conversion of Z rotation energy ,therefore ω decrease, in conservation of energy ?

Regards.
 
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  • #81
Hi Vanadium 50,
I don't understand in the particular case of a dipole in a magnetic field where the electric forces come in; I'm interested in this case at looking at a careful analysis of the forces just to understand how it works.

The calculation that I eluded to, using the torque on a magnetic dipole by a magnetic field, seems to imply that the magnetic field does the work. The electric field plays no role in this argument; there are no external electric fields and we have not included the effects of the electric fields generated by the dipole.

(In fact the electric fields generated by the dipole give an additional energy to the system of +m.B)

So how are the electric forces responsible for the work in this specific case?
 
  • #82
What holds the dipole together?
 
  • #83
Vanadium 50 said:
What holds the dipole together?


We're going in circles again. All pertinent forces have been thorughly examined. Refer to pages 1 through 4 and you will find good info from several contributors.

We pretty much reached a consensus that H fields do no direct work on a charged particle, but H exerts force while E provides tethering force yanking the lattice towards the free electrons.

E does indeed hold the lattice and electrons together. H moves the electrons in a direction normal to its velocity, and the lattice is yanked along due to the tethering nature of the E force.

At a mIcroscopic scale, H does not literally "do work" on an electron. At the mAcro scale, H determines the magnitude and direction of the wire deflection. H moves electrons which yank the lattice along due to E.

It is well understood now. Every e/m fields text makes it a point to emphasize the mutually inclusive nature of E & H. They are strongly inter-related, and under time-varying conditions, cannot exist independently. Under static conditions, either can exist alone.

We should all agree at this point.

Claude
 
  • #84
Ok, I think I get what you're saying now. It doesn't matter what's holding the dipole together; whether its electric forces, gluons or Achillies. If we're thinking of a dipole as a spinning spherical shell, the important thing to notice is that if it is conducting when we put it in a magnetic field the charge will redistribute so that it is no longer a dipole at all.

Consequently when we put a dipole in a magnetic field, turn on the magnetic field and assume that the charge does NOT redistribute, we need to supply special angle-dependent forces to prevent this redistribution. The difference in electromagnetic energy between redistributing and not redistributing the charge is supplied by the work done by this "special force". We claim that this is then exactly +m.B.

I've been trying to verify this in a specific example, but the maths is a little tricky so I'll see how we go; but the explanation seems physically plausible. Thanks.
 
  • #85
cabraham said:
Under static conditions, either can exist alone.

Whether a condition is static is relative to the velocity of the obsever. I think a better term would be comoving.
 

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