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Physics: Ampere's circuital law

Physics: Ampere's circuital law
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Ampere's circuital law

In classical electromagnetism, Ampère's circuital law, often simply called Ampère's law, and sometimes Oersted's law, relates the circulation of a magnetic field around a closed loop to the electric current passing through that loop.

Commentary

Commentary

Ampere's circuital law In classical electromagnetism, Ampère's circuital law, often simply called Ampère's law, and sometimes Oersted's law, relates the circulation of a magnetic field around a closed loop to the electric current passing through that loop.

Commentary

Why does Ampere's circuital law matter? This principle is one of the building blocks physicists use to explain the world. Without it, a whole class of phenomena would have no mathematical description. Engineers, chemists, and astronomers all rely on it.

Commentary

Background: Ampere's circuital law In classical electromagnetism, Ampère's circuital law, often simply called Ampère's law, and sometimes Oersted's law, relates the circulation of a magnetic field around a closed loop to the electric current passing through that loop. The law was inspired by Hans Christian Ørsted's 1820 discovery that an electric current generates a magnetic field. This finding prompted theoretical and experimental work by André-Marie Ampère and others, eventually leading to the formulation of the law in its modern form. James Clerk Maxwell published the law in 1855. In 1865, he generalized the law to account for time-varying electric currents by introducing the displacement current term. The resulting equation, often called the Ampère–Maxwell law, is one of Maxwell's equations that form the foundation of classical electromagnetism.