What causes induced magnetic fields?

[channel1]

ok so you have a current flowing through a wire that induces a magnetic field, the direction of which is given by the right hand rule. my question is: WHY is there an induced magnetic field? what actually causes it? thanks.
(fyi I am in classical e&m right now)

 

[espen180]

If you accept that there exists an electric field, and you accept that special relativity is valid, you can actually derive the magnetic forces.

Take a look at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativistic_electromagnetism

 

[channel1]

could you please explain it conceptually? (im in second semester physics, relativity is 3rd semester, "derive" sounds like youre certainly just speaking in mathematics---whereas I am interested in the conceptual explanation. Einstein said "If a physical theory cannot be explained to a child, it is probably worthless." so there should be a valid conceptual explanation for something as basic as induced magnetism)

 

[zoobyshoe]

Einstein said "If a physical theory cannot be explained to a child, it is probably worthless." so there should be a valid conceptual explanation for something as basic as induced magnetism)

There is.

I figure by now you must be familiar with Galilean/Newtonian relativity. They both came to the realization that the way things look to an observer is dependent on whatever relative motion there might be between the person looking at the phenomenon and the phenomenon itself. Example:

If a guy is standing on the moving platform of a flatbed train car and bouncing a ball, it looks to him like the ball is just moving up and down. To someone on the ground watching the train pass, though, the ball will seem to be describing a series of parabolas. Galileo and Newton asserted that neither one was "right" or "wrong". It's just a neutral fact that the observation of a phenomenon depends on the relative motion between the thing and the observer. "Rest" or "motion" aren't absolute things. We can only speak of something being at rest or in motion relative to something else. The general principle here is that the way something looks or behaves can be very different depending on how you and the thing are moving relative to each other.

Einstein had a hunch this same thing applied to a magnetic field, that a "magnetic" field was really just a case of something being in motion relative to an electric field:

What led me more or less directly to the special theory of relativity was the conviction that the electromotive force acting on a body in motion in a magnetic field was nothing else but an electric field.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativistic_electromagnetism

In other words: there is no such thing as a magnetic field. Those things we call "magnetic" are, in fact, the result of something being in motion relative to an electric field. Or, equally valid, they are the result of an electric field being in motion relative to something else.

In other words, if you and the field are at rest relative to each other, all its properties and behaviors are going to be those things we think of as "electric". If there is relative motion , though, the same electric field now exhibits "magnetic" behaviors.

Now, having said "there's no such thing as a magnetic field," I have to contradict myself and point out that to the thing in motion relative to an electric field, all the magnetic effects it feels are quite real and definite. In the inertial frame of that thing, magnetic fields are quite real.

So, what you see in a current-carrying wire is a very large herd of electric fields in motion along the wire having magnetic effects on anything which is at rest or moving differently relative to the herd. This is why a current-carrying conductor automatically has a magnetic field: because the electric fields traveling down the wire are pretty much guaranteed to be in relative motion to everything else in the vicinity.

I hope that meets your challenge for a conceptual explanation a child could understand, least this physical theory be deemed worthless in your eyes.

 

[Dale]

Einstein said "If a physical theory cannot be explained to a child, it is probably worthless."

This quote seems to be misattributed:
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Einstein

In any case, this is not a scientific criterion for physical theories.

 

[zoobyshoe]

This quote seems to be misattributed:
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Einstein

Not misattributed, but third hand (and therefore open to suspicion):

P. 418 of Einstein: His Life and Times by Ronald W. Clark says that Louis de Broglie did attribute a similar statement to Einstein:
To de Broglie, Einstein revealed an instinctive reason for his inability to accept the purely statistical interpretation of wave mechanics. It was a reason which linked him with Rutherford, who used to state that "it should be possible to explain the laws of physics to a barmaid." Einstein, having a final discussion with de Broglie on the platform of the Gare du Nord in Paris, whence they had traveled from Brussels to attend the Fresnel centenary celebrations, said "that all physical theories, their mathematical expressions apart ought to lend themselves to so simple a description 'that even a child could understand them.' "
Clark's book does not give a reference for this specific statement by de Broglie, but it follows a quote by de Broglie in the previous paragraph which is attributed to de Broglie's book New Perspectives in Physics, so this may come from the same source.

Clark says that de Broglie said that Einstein said...

In any case, this is not a scientific criterion for physical theories.

True, of course.

 

[jtbell]

WHY is there an induced magnetic field? what actually causes it?

An electric charge produces an electric field. Why does it do that? What actually causes the electric field?

Newton's Third Law says that for every force there is an equal and opposite "reaction" force. What actually causes it?

Etc.

The point is that you can go only so far with "why" questions in physics. At some point you reach the limits of our current understanding. The fact that an electric current produces a magnetic field is the subject of one of Maxwell's equations which form the basis for classical electromagnetism. So asking why an electric current produces a magnetic field is equivalent to asking, "why are Maxwell's equations the way they are?"

You might as well ask, "why are Newton's three laws of motion the way they are?"

 

[channel1]

zooby - dude, gold star. lol i think i still need a nudge in the right direction in putting the pieces together though. I've been thinking about what you said (analogies REALLY help) and hopefully ill be able to post back tomorrow after work after I've thought it through some more. so thanks a bunch so far!



jtbell - first: "An electric charge produces an electric field." an electric charge producing an electric field is easier to accept than electric charges producing an electric field AND this new concept (for me) called a magnetic field. it really does leave a big gap to ask "where does it come from", which i believe is a question that should ALWAYS be asked---for every physical phenomena. i mean that's what science is all about and how progress is made within the field. (not that I am hoping to make "progress within the field" with my current level of understanding, but hey got to start somewhere)

"At some point you reach the limits of our current understanding." I am not sure why it seems difficult for a lot of physics enthusiasts to just say "we don't know". it really seems like many would rather say I am asking a pointless question, rather than just admitting ignorance.

 

[mathfeel]

To paraphrase Feynman, when you ask a "WHY" question, the answer is always in terms of some preexisting notion.

Science provides a description of nature, not an explanation, certainly not a justification. There is no REASON why the law of nature are the way they are. They just are and we, who live in nature, try to write them down.

So when you ask why, you have to also ask to what level are you willing to accept an answer?

• That electric current create magnetic field is a observable phenomena for which we have a good description of?
• That from SR, magnetism is just a different aspect of electricity, or more precisely, electromagnetism is one of the same thing. So the "reason" a current has a magnetic field is the same "reason" a charge has electric field.
• That the laws of nature seems to have certain Gauge symmetry and electromagnetic field is the corresponding Gauge field: So the "reason" electromagnetism happens is due to certain symmetry of nature.

At each level, you can keep asking why and it never ends. So yes, the WHY is ultimately pointless. The HOW, on the other hand, is useful because I can compare its prediction with observation. And science, unlike math, is only justified by observation.

 

[harrylin]

ok so you have a current flowing through a wire that induces a magnetic field, the direction of which is given by the right hand rule. my question is: WHY is there an induced magnetic field? what actually causes it? thanks.
(fyi I am in classical e&m right now)

Charged particles exert forces on each other and in motion those forces are reduced. As others here indicated, this doesn't need to be considered as necessarily due to a separate, magnetic field on top of an electric field; instead the magnetic field can be interpreted as a modification of the effective (electric) field strength due to motion. The electromagnetic equations are very similar to equations from fluid mechanics, and people such as Maxwell and contemporaries imagined all kinds of invisible fluid flows or even gear systems as models of what happens (and thus why it could happen that way).
However, we can only see the effect and not the cause, and apparently there were too many possible models, so even Maxwell dropped those and just stuck with the equations which can be verified.