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James Clerk Maxwell FRS FRSE (13 June 1831 – 5 November 1879) was a Scottish physicist and mathematician [1] who was responsible for the classical theory of electromagnetic radiation, which was the first theory to describe electricity, magnetism and light as different manifestations of the same phenomenon.
These similarities led Lord Kelvin to propose a formal definition of magnetic field [2] in 1851: [4] Any space at every point of which there is a finite magnetic force is called ‘a field of magnetic force’ or (magnetic being understood) simply ‘a field of force,’ or sometimes ‘a magnetic field’.
Examples of the dynamic fields of electromagnetic radiation (in order of increasing frequency): radio waves, microwaves, light (infrared, visible light and ultraviolet), x-rays and gamma rays. In the field of particle physics this electromagnetic radiation is the manifestation of the electromagnetic interaction between charged particles.
The detection of magnetic monopoles is an open problem in experimental physics. In some theoretical models, magnetic monopoles are unlikely to be observed, because they are too massive to be created in particle accelerators, and also too rare in the Universe to enter a particle detector with much probability.
That mental model was crucial to the successful development of electromechanical devices which were to dominate the 19th century. His demonstrations that a changing magnetic field produces an electric field, mathematically modeled by Faraday's law of induction, would subsequently become one of Maxwell's equations.
It was by his research on the magnetic field around a conductor carrying a direct current that Faraday established the concept of the electromagnetic field in physics. Faraday also established that magnetism could affect rays of light and that there was an underlying relationship between the two phenomena.
[15] [16] Maxwell's extension to the law states that a time-varying electric field can also generate a magnetic field. [12] Similarly, Faraday's law of induction states that a magnetic field can produce an electric current. For example, a magnet pushed in and out of a coil of wires can produce an electric current in the coils which is ...
The electric and magnetic fields in such a wave are in-phase with each other, reaching minima and maxima together. Electric and magnetic fields obey the properties of superposition. Thus, a field due to any particular particle or time-varying electric or magnetic field contributes to the fields present in the same space due to other causes.