Why is a wire affected by magnetism?
In: Physics
It depends on what the wire is up to.
A wire made of a magnetic material, like steel, is affected by a magnetic field (like a magnet) because of the material properties of steel, and the internal electric behavior of the atoms that make up the wire.
If the wire is conductive, but with no current, the affect is caused by an induced current in the wire. Depending on the wire’s resistance, this could generate force or heat.
If the wire is conductive and a current is flowing through it, it will be affected by the forces produces when the magnetic field of the current interacts with the outside magnetism. Electric current and magnetism are the same thing, called electromagnetism.
Electricity and magnetism are the same force (and interestingly, using Einstein’s general relativity, you can “turn” one into the other just by looking at it differently). A moving magnetic field creates an opposing electric current and a moving electric current creates an opposing magnetic field. Even a wire is made of a nonmagnetic metal, the current flowing through it generates a magnetic field anyway.
They just are. We figured out the laws of electricity and magnetism – we know exactly how they behave – but we can’t explain why they exist at all.
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