Data analysis/Conclusions. Describe the general characteristic of the field that
ID: 1540085 • Letter: D
Question
Data analysis/Conclusions. Describe the general characteristic of the field that you observe. 1. On your sketches, label the regions where the magnetic field is strongest and weakest for each configuration. Are there any points where the field is essentially zero? Identify these locations as well. Be sure to include the reasoning behind your answers. 2. Can you find any places where the magnetic field lines ever cross? If there was a spatial point where two field lines crossed, what would the direction of the field be at that point? If there are fields from two sources present at some point in space, for instance the magnetic fields of Earth and the bar magnet, will some iron filings feel forces from one field and other filings feel forces from the other field, or will all filings feel forces from both fields simultaneously? Discuss/explain.Explanation / Answer
1. This question needs a diagram. But if the question is whether zero magnetic field is possible or not then the answer is yes. Example the magnetic field due to two parallel conducting wires carrying the same magnitude of current in the same direction is zero at a point equidistant from both the wires and lying exactly in the plane of the two wires.
2. It’s not really true that magnetic field lines cannot cross, but where they do, the magnetic field strength has to be zero.
Here’s why: A magnetic field line is that path in space that points in the direction of the magnetic field at every point along it. Walk along a magnetic field line carrying a compass, and the needle will always point in the direction you need to go in order to stay on that magnetic field line (the needle has to be able to pivot up and down as well as around in a circle like most compasses).
If two field lines crossed, then that is saying that the magnetic field points in two different directions, at one place. There’s only one direction to the magnetic field at any place at any time, so this doesn’t happen.
A field of zero is the only kind of magnetic field without a direction.
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