Measure Your Magnetism experiment

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deleted-260257
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Project Question: Magnets
Project Due Date: 01/9/2014
Project Status: I am finished with my experiment and analyzing the data

Measure Your Magnetism experiment

Post by deleted-260257 »

I just completed the "Measure Your Magnetism" experiment and I have some questions about what it means for the magnetic field strength to be a negative number. I got a value of 2.45 for v0 then for the 1st magnet I got v1 to be 4.71. When I calculate B using the formula provided, I get a negative value. Does it make sense for B to be negative? Also, if one magnet has B = -452 and another magnet has B = -112, which has the stronger magnetic field strength?
bradleyshanrock-solberg
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Re: Measure Your Magnetism experiment

Post by bradleyshanrock-solberg »

Any time you are dealing with forces, a negative number usually means it's just "going the opposite direction" from whatever you are measuring and declaring to be "positive".

So I would expect a negative field strength to move things in the opposite direction than expected - the field pushes instead of pulling.

The strength is the number, the + or minus is the direction. If you think of it that way you'll arrive at the right conclusion (-442 is stronger than -112. -442 is also stronger than +112, but applies that stronger force in the opposite direction)
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