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The Biot-Savart Law: From Infinitesimal To Infinite, Jeffrey A. Phillips, Jeff Sanny

Physics Faculty Works

In this paper, we discuss a simple apparatus and accompanying class activity that we have developed to illustrate the Biot-Savart law. Since students in introductory electricity and magnetism courses often find this law a mathematical mystery, we feel that a simple experiment such as this will provide the students a better understanding of the concepts introduced. By collecting data from several finite segment lengths, students are able to infer the 1/r² distance dependence of the magnetic field for infinitesimal segments and the 1/r dependence for infinite wires.