Tuesday, July 8, 2014

electromagnetism - Does the weight of an magnet raise when balancing an object?


I was wondering if say I use an magnet which is facing positive and then I expel an another magnet above it which is facing the positive with its positive side and I ensure the magnet does not rotate or change its face via say and small string so its always facing positive will face positive. As a result (I hypothesize) my both magnets attempt to repel and with this they create an force pushing down upon the bottom magnet due to repelling. The question here is while I am doing this experiment I use an weight measure to see if the weight increases and I would think it would increase but not sure, so can someone tell me if my hypothesis is correct?



Answer



Does the weight of either magnet increase by any measurable amount? No


Does the force exerted by the bottom magnet on the ground increase? Yes


"Equal and opposite forces" means that the force that the magnet on the bottom exerts on the top magnet is also being applied by the top magnet on the bottom one. If this occured on a scale and the top one was completely levetated by the bottom magnet and only the bottom magnet, the scale would read the weight of both magnets.


No comments:

Post a Comment

classical mechanics - Moment of a force about a given axis (Torque) - Scalar or vectorial?

I am studying Statics and saw that: The moment of a force about a given axis (or Torque) is defined by the equation: $M_X = (\vec r \times \...