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Electromagnet (Edited from Wikipedia)

Electromagnet (Edited from Wikipedia)

(Edited from Wikipedia)

SUMMARY

An electromagnet is a type of in which the is produced by an . The magnetic field disappears when the current is turned off. usually consist of insulated wire wound into a coil. A current through the wire creates a magnetic field which is concentrated in the hole in the center of the coil. The wire turns are often wound around a made from a ferromagnetic or ferrimagnetic material such as ; the magnetic core concentrates the magnetic and makes a more powerful magnet.

The main advantage of an electromagnet over a permanent magnet is that the magnetic field can be quickly changed by controlling the amount of electric current in the winding. However, unlike a permanent magnet that needs no power, an electromagnet requires a continuous supply of current to maintain the magnetic field.

Electromagnets are widely used as components of other electrical devices, such as motors, generators, relays, , hard disks, MRI , scientific instruments, and magnetic separation equipment. Electromagnets are also employed in industry for picking up and moving heavy iron objects such as scrap iron and steel.

HISTORY

Danish scientist Hans Christian Ørsted discovered in 1820 that electric currents create magnetic fields. British scientist invented the electromagnet in 1824. His first electromagnet was a horseshoe-shaped piece of iron that was wrapped with about 18 turns of bare copper wire (insulated wire didn't exist yet). The iron was varnished to insulate it from the windings.

When a current was passed through the coil, the iron became magnetized and attracted other pieces of iron; when the current was stopped, it lost . Sturgeon displayed its power by showing that although it only weighed seven ounces (roughly 200 ), it could lift nine pounds (roughly 4 kilos) when the current of a single-cell battery was applied. However, Sturgeon's were weak because the uninsulated wire he used could only be wrapped in a single spaced out layer around the core, limiting the number of turns.

1 HANS CHRISTIAN

Hans Christian Ørsted (14 August 1777 – 9 March 1851) was a Danish and chemist who discovered that electric currents create magnetic fields, which was the first connection found between and . He is still known today for Oersted's Law. He shaped post-Kantian philosophy and advances in science throughout the late .

In 1824, Ørsted founded Selskabet for Naturlærens Udbredelse (SNU), a society to disseminate knowledge of the natural sciences. He was also the founder of predecessor organizations which eventually became the Danish Meteorological Institute and the Danish Patent and Trademark Office. Ørsted was the first modern thinker to explicitly describe and name the thought experiment.

On 21 April 1820, during a lecture, Ørsted noticed a compass needle deflected from magnetic north when an electric current from a battery was switched on and off, confirming a direct relationship between electricity and magnetism. His initial interpretation was that magnetic effects radiate from all sides of a wire carrying an electric current, as do light and .

Three months later he began more intensive investigations and soon thereafter published his findings, showing that an electric current produces a circular magnetic field as it flows through a wire. This discovery was not due to mere chance, since Ørsted had been looking for a relation between electricity and magnetism for several years. The special symmetry of the phenomenon was possibly one of the difficulties that retarded the discovery.

It is sometimes claimed that Italian Gian Domenico Romagnosi was the first person who found a relationship between electricity and magnetism, about two decades before Ørsted's 1820 discovery of . Romagnosi's experiments showed that an electric current from a could deflect a magnetic needle. His researches were published in two Italian newspapers and were largely overlooked by the scientific community.

Ørsted's findings stirred much research into electrodynamics throughout the scientific community, influencing French physicist André-Marie Ampère's developments of a single mathematical formula to represent the magnetic forces between current-carrying conductors. Ørsted's also represented a major step toward a unified concept of .

2 A leader of the so-called Danish Golden Age, Ørsted was a close friend of and the brother of politician and jurist Anders Sandøe Ørsted, who eventually served as Danish prime minister (1853–54).

The oersted (Oe), the cgs unit of magnetic H-field strength, is named after him.

WILLIAM STURGEON

Sturgeon was born in Whittington, in , and apprenticed to a shoemaker. He joined the army in 1802 and taught himself mathematics and . In 1824 he became Lecturer in Science and Philosophy at the East India Company's Military Seminary at Addiscombe, Surrey, and in the following year he exhibited his first electromagnet. He displayed its power by lifting nine pounds with a seven-ounce piece of iron wrapped with wire through which a current from a single battery was sent.

In 1832 he was appointed to the lecturing staff of the Adelaide Gallery of Practical Science in , where he first demonstrated the DC incorporating a commutator.

In 1836 Sturgeon established the journal Annals of Electricity, Magnetism and , and in the same year he invented a .

Sturgeon was a close associate of John Peter Gassiot and Charles Vincent Walker and the three were instrumental in founding the London Electrical Society in 1837.

In 1840 he became superintendent of the Royal Victoria Gallery of Practical Science in . He formed a close social circle with John Davies, one of the Gallery's promoters, and Davies's student James Prescott , a circle that eventually extended to include and the surgeon . The Gallery closed in 1842, and he earned a living by lecturing and demonstrating. He died in Prestwich in 1850, and is buried in the Churchyard of St Mary's Parish Church in a tomb that calls him "William Sturgeon ~ The Electrician".

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