Faraday’s Laws of Electromagnetic Induction

Faraday’s Laws are set of two basic laws which deal with electromagnetic induction.

What is electromagnetic induction?
Electromagnetic or magnetic induction is the production of an electromotive force across an electrical conductor in a changing magnetic field. Michael Faraday is generally credited with the discovery of induction in 1831.

So, let us look at the these laws and their applications in detail.

Faraday’s Laws

As mentioned above there are two laws namely Faraday’s First Law and Faraday’s Second Law.

Faraday’s First Law

The first law of electromagnetic induction basically describes the induction of emf in a conductor. This law came from several experiments done by Faraday and Henry.

The first law states that Whenever a conductor is placed in a varying magnetic field, EMF induces and this emf is called an induced emf, and if the conductor is a closed circuit than the induced current flows through it.

Faraday’s Second Law

The second law of electromagnetic induction quantifies the emf produced in the conductor.

The second law states that the induced emf in a coil is equal to the rate of change of flux linkage.

This law gives us an equation to quantify the emf produced which is as follows

ε = −N (Δϕ/Δt)

Where,
ε is the electromotive force
N is the number of turns in the coil
ϕ is the magnetic flux

Magnetic flux is a measurement of the total magnetic field which passes through a given area. It is a useful tool for helping describe the effects of the magnetic force on something occupying a given area.

Applications of Faraday’s Laws

These laws are used in a lot of modern things, some of the most prominent ones are:

1. Electrical generators which produce electricity works on the principle of electromagnetic induction.
2. In a transformer which is used to change the voltage of the alternating current works on the principle of electromagnetic induction.
3. The working of electrical bells are based on electromagnetic induction.
4. One of the maxwell’s equations comes from Faraday’s laws only.
5. Induction cookers also used Faraday’s laws.
6. Faraday’s laws find its applications in musical instruments like an electric guitar as well

So, that was a short outline on Faraday’s laws of electromagnetic induction