Eli5: what exactly is the electromagnetic field?

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Eli5: what exactly is the electromagnetic field?

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2 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Electricity and magnetism are closely related, and the reason is because that’s how the physics works. There’s not really a better explanation than that.

An electric field will induce a magnetic field, and vice versa. Electric current is affected by a strong enough nearby magnetic field, and a permanent magnet will be affected by a strong enough nearby electric field. That’s why putting a magnet near a CRT display will cause the colors to weird out, because the CRT works by firing electrons, and the movement of electrons is just an electric current.

This is also how electromagnetic waves such as light work. They consist of a changing electric field and a changing magnetic field, and the way they induce eachother is how these waves can basically travel forever in a vacuum if they don’t hit anything.

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