Over 6,458,000 live tutoring sessions served!
  • Home
  • How it works
  • About Us
  • Home
  • PhysicsPhysics IVMoving Charges and Magnetism
Top

Biot and Savart's Law

The Biot - Savart's law enables us to write the general results for the magnetic field due to an arbitrary current distribution or it is an experimental law predicted by Biot and Savart dealing with magnetic field strength at a point due to a small current element.

If AB represents a current element of a conductor PQ carrying current I and the position vector of P from the current element AB (i.e., of length ), then the law states that magnetic field (dB) at P due to current element depends on

magnetic field due to current element

Combining we get,

Biot Savart s law
permeability of free space

and is called permeability of free space.

In the vector form,

S.I. unit is 1 tesla or 1T.

Sub Topics
  • Note:
  • Similarities and Differences Between Biot-Savart's Law and Coulomb's Law
  • Similarities
  • Differences
 

Note:

Back to Top

2) If P lies on the conductor, dB = 0

3) If q = 90o then dB is maximum

4) If q = 0o or q = 180o then dB is minimum

Magnetic field due to a whole conductor is found by summing over all current elements.

Magnetic field due to a whole conductor

where the integration is taken over the entire conductor in which current I flows.

Similarities and Differences Between Biot-Savart's Law and Coulomb's Law

Back to Top

Similarities

Back to Top

1) Both magnetic and electric field depend inversely on the distance between the source and the field point

2) Both are long-range forces

3) Principle of superposition applies to both fields as the fields are linearly related to the sources.

Differences

Back to Top

differences between electric and magnetic field


Related Questions
Related Calculators
Newtons Second Law of Motion Calculator
Moving Charges and Magnetism
Related Pages
  • Laws of Vectors
  • Polygon Law
*AP and SAT are registered trademarks of the College Board.

About Us |  Contact Us |  Blog |  Homework Help |  Teaching Jobs |  Search Lessons |  Answers |  Calculators |  Worksheets

Copyright © 2010 - TutorVista.com, All rights reserved.