3. The third principle to be borne in mind is that to do work of any kind, whether mechanical or electrical, requires the expenditure of energy to a certain amount. The steam engine cannot work without its coal, nor the laborer without his food; nor will a flame go on burning without its fuel of some kind or other. Neither can an electric current go on flowing, nor an electric light keep on shedding forth its beams, without a constant supply of energy from some source or other.
Fig. 1.
The last of these three principles, involving the relation of electric currents to the work they can do and to the energy expended in their production, will be treated of separately and later. Meantime we resume the task of showing how such currents can be produced mechanically, and how magnetism comes in in the process.
Fig. 2
Surrounding every magnet there is a "field" or region in which the magnetic forces act. Any small magnet, such for example as a compass needle, when brought into this field of force, exhibits a tendency to set itself in a certain direction. It turns so as to point with its north pole toward the south pole of the magnet, and with its south pole toward the north pole of the magnet; or if it cannot do both these things at once, it takes up an intermediate position under the joint action of the separate forces and sets in along a certain line. Such lines of force run through the magnetic "field" from one pole of the magnet to the other in curves. If we define a line of force as being the line along which a free north-seeking magnetic pole would be urged, then these lines will run from the north pole of the magnet round to the south pole, and pass through the substance of the magnet itself. In Fig. 1 a rough sketch is given of the lines of magnetic force as they emerge from the poles of a bar magnet in tufts. The arrow heads show the direction in which a free north pole would move. These lines of forces are no fiction of the imagination, like the lines of latitude and longitude on the globe; they exist and can be rendered visible by the simplest of expedients. When iron filings are sprinkled upon a card or a sheet of glass below which a magnet is placed, the filings set themselves--especially if aided by a gentle tap--along the lines of force. Fig. 2 is a reproduction from nature of this very experiment, and surpasses any attempt to draw the lines of force artificially. It is impossible to magnetize a magnet without also in this fashion magnetizing the space surrounding the magnet; and the space thus filled with the lines of force possesses properties which ordinary unmagnetic space does not possess. These lines give us definite information about the magnetic condition of the space where they are. Their direction shows us the direction of the magnetic forces, and their density shows us the strength of the magnetic forces; for where the force is strongest there we have the lines of force most numerous and most strongly delineated in the scattered filings. To complete this first consideration of the magnetic field surrounding a magnet, we will take a look at Fig. 3, which reproduces the lines of filings as they settle in the field of force opposite the end of a bar magnet. The repulsion of the north pole of the magnet upon the north poles of other magnets would be, of course, in lines diverging radially from the magnet pole.
Fig. 3
We will next consider the space surrounding a wire through which a current of electricity is flowing. This wire has magnetic properties so long as the current continues, and will, like a magnet, act on a compass needle. But the needle never tries to point toward the wire; its tendency is always to set itself broadside to the current and at right angles to it. The "field" of a current flowing up a straight wire is, in fact, not unlike the sketch shown in Fig. 4, where instead of tufted groups we have a sort of magnetic whirl to represent the lines of force. The lines of force of the galvanic field are, indeed, circles or curves which inclose the conducting wire, and their number is proportional to the strength of the current. In the figure, where the current is supposed to be flowing up the wire (shown by the dark arrows), the little arrows show the direction in which a free north pole would be urged round the wire;[1] a south pole would, of course, be urged round the wire in the contrary direction. Now, though when we look at the telegraph wires, or at any wire carrying a current of electricity, we cannot see these whirls of magnetic force in the surrounding space, there is no doubt that they exist there, and that a great part of the energy spent in starting an electric current is spent in producing these magnetic whirls in the surrounding space. There is, however, one way of showing the existence of these lines of force; similar, indeed, to that adopted for showing the lines of force in the field surrounding a magnet. Pass the conducting wire up through a hole in a card or a plate of glass, as shown in Fig. 5, and sprinkle filings over the surface. They will, when the glass is gently tapped, arrange themselves in concentric circles, the smallest and innermost being the best defined because the magnetic force is strongest there. Fig 6 is an actual reproduction of the circular lines produced in this fashion by iron filings in the field of force surrounding an electric current.