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Q.Find the force acting on a current carrying conductor in a uniform magnetic field. Using it, find the force between two parallel current carrying conductors.

Jharkhand JacJAC Intermediate Board 2025Subjective· 5mImportance★★★★★
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The magnetic force on a current-carrying wire comes from summing the Lorentz forces on its individual drifting charges, giving F = BIL sin(theta); applying this to a wire sitting in the magnetic field created by a second parallel wire gives the mutual force law between them.

Force on a current-carrying conductor in a uniform field:

A current I in a wire of length L can be thought of as many charge carriers each moving with drift velocity v_d. The magnetic force on a single carrier of charge q is q v_d x B. Summing over all N such carriers in the wire (with I = n A e v_d, etc.), the total force works out to:

F = I L x B, with magnitude F = B I L sin(theta)

where theta is the angle between the current direction (along the wire) and B, L is the length of wire in the field, and the direction of F is given by the right-hand (or F = IL x B) rule.

Force between two parallel current-carrying conductors:

Consider two long, straight, parallel wires separated by distance d, carrying currents I1 and I2.

Wire 1 produces a magnetic field at the location of wire 2 (a distance d away) of magnitude (from Ampere's law for a long straight wire):

B1 = mu0 I1 / (2 pi d)

This field is perpendicular to wire 2, so the force on a length L of wire 2 (using F = BIL sin theta with theta = 90 degrees) is:

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