Calculate the force acting on a current-carrying wire within an external magnetic field.
Parameters
Results
Enter current, length, field, and angle
About this calculator
Overview
A wire carrying an electric current will experience a mechanical force when placed in a magnetic field. This force is a result of the collective Lorentz force acting on the individual moving charges within the wire.
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Pro Tips
The force is maximized when the wire is perpendicular to the magnetic field (90°).
The force disappears entirely if the wire is perfectly parallel or anti-parallel to the field (0° or 180°).
The direction of the force is always perpendicular to both the current and the magnetic field lines.
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Fun Facts
"This discovery by Michael Faraday led directly to the invention of the electric motor."
"The force can be extremely strong in laboratory magnets, sometimes enough to crush the experiments themselves."
"Modern railguns use exactly this force to accelerate projectiles to hypersonic speeds."
