Electromagnetism |
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Electricity · Magnetism · Magnetic permeability |
Maxwell's equations describe how electric charges and electric currents create electric and magnetic fields. They describe how an electric field can generate a magnetic field.
In the 1860s James Clerk Maxwell published equations that describe how charged particles give rise to electric and magnetic force per unit charge. The force per unit charge is called a field. The particles could be stationary or moving. These, and the Lorentz force equation, give everything one needs to calculate the motion of classical particles in electric and magnetic fields.
The first equation allows one to calculate the electric field created by a charge. The second allows one to calculate the magnetic field. The other two describe how fields 'circulate' around their sources. Magnetic fields 'circulate' around electric currents and time varying electric fields: Ampère's law with Maxwell's extension, while electric fields 'circulate' around time varying magnetic fields: Faraday's law.