- #1
kostoglotov
- 234
- 6
I was reading through my College Physics text, and it talked about how NASA once swung a 20km long conductor through the Earth's magnetic field and setup a 3500V potential difference along the wire.
I understand that there's no conventional current in that wire, it's not a circuit. But for a brief moment, in the instants that the charge was separating, wouldn't this momentary movement of charge behave briefly like a current? And if so, wouldn't that momentarily setup it's own magnetic field? Would Lenz's law about the direction of the current somehow conform to what was happening during the separation of charge here? (the momentarily induced magnetic field would simultaneously oppose, add to, be orthogonal to, etc the Earth's field) Does Lenz's law only apply to circuit with an effective area experiencing a changing magnetic flux?
Presumably work was done by the shuttle to achieve separation of the charge in the wire. Was no net power dissipated by the (briefly) induced magnetic field?
I understand that there's no conventional current in that wire, it's not a circuit. But for a brief moment, in the instants that the charge was separating, wouldn't this momentary movement of charge behave briefly like a current? And if so, wouldn't that momentarily setup it's own magnetic field? Would Lenz's law about the direction of the current somehow conform to what was happening during the separation of charge here? (the momentarily induced magnetic field would simultaneously oppose, add to, be orthogonal to, etc the Earth's field) Does Lenz's law only apply to circuit with an effective area experiencing a changing magnetic flux?
Presumably work was done by the shuttle to achieve separation of the charge in the wire. Was no net power dissipated by the (briefly) induced magnetic field?