Magnetic effects of electric currents

Nature of science:

Models and visualization: Magnetic field lines provide a powerful visualization of a magnetic field. Historically, the field lines helped scientists and engineers to understand a link that begins with the influence of one moving charge on another and leads onto relativity. (1.10)

• Magnetic fields
• Magnetic force

Applications and skills:

• Determining the direction of force on a charge moving in a magnetic field
• Determining the direction of force on a current-carrying conductor in a magnetic field
• Sketching and interpreting magnetic field patterns
• Determining the direction of the magnetic field based on current direction
• Solving problems involving magnetic forces, fields, current and charges

Guidance:

• Magnetic field patterns will be restricted to long straight conductors, solenoids, and bar magnets

Data booklet reference:

• The investigation of magnetism is one of the oldest studies by man and was used extensively by voyagers in the Mediterranean and beyond thousands of years ago

Theory of knowledge:

• Field patterns provide a visualization of a complex phenomenon, essential to an understanding of this topic. Why might it be useful to regard knowledge in a similar way, using the metaphor of knowledge as a map – a simplified representation of reality?

Utilization:

• Only comparatively recently has the magnetic compass been superseded by different technologies after hundreds of years of our dependence on it
• Modern medical scanners rely heavily on the strong, uniform magnetic fields produced by devices that utilize superconductors
• Particle accelerators such as the Large Hadron Collider at CERN rely on a variety of precise magnets for aligning the particle beams

Aims:

• Aims 2 and 9: visualizations frequently provide us with insights into the action of magnetic fields; however, the visualizations themselves have their own limitations
• Aim 7: computer-based simulations enable the visualization of electromagnetic fields in three-dimensional space