If a wire carrying current produces magnetic field around it, why its not attracted to nearby metals ? In a general household.

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If a wire carrying current produces magnetic field around it, why its not attracted to nearby metals ? In a general household.

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Anonymous 0 Comments

It is. But four things: One: The current moving through house wires tends to be small. A couple amps here and there , and occasionally 10-20 amps.

A current of 20A for example will create a magnetic field about as strong as the earths when measured close to the wire. I don’t recall any magnets sticking to the ground haha.

Two: The current reverses 60x a second. Which means the magnetic field also reverses itself 60x a second. So the magnetic field kinda cancels itself out. Imagine it was strong enough to attract metal. It would attract then repel them attract …

Three: this is a circular field. It doesn’t act like a bar magnet. So even if it was not alternating current I’m not sure if a piece of metal would “stick “

Four: there are two current carrying wires in most home wiring . The two wires are very close and they are out of phase with one another so they really do approximately cancel each other’s magnetic fields.

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