Paradoxes in which Faraday's law of induction seems to predict zero EMF but actually predicts non-zero EMF
These paradoxes are generally resolved by the fact that an EMF may be created by a changing flux in a circuit as explained in Faraday's law or by the movement of a conductor in a magnetic field. This is explained by Feynman as noted below. See also A. Sommerfeld, Vol III
Electrodynamics Academic Press, page 362.
The equipment The experiment requires a few simple components (see Figure 1): a cylindrical
magnet, a conducting disc with a conducting rim, a conducting axle, some wiring, and a
galvanometer. The disc and the magnet are fitted a short distance apart on the axle, on which they are free to rotate about their own axes of symmetry. An electrical circuit is formed by connecting sliding contacts: one to the axle of the disc, the other to its rim. A galvanometer can be inserted in the circuit to measure the current.
The procedure The experiment proceeds in three steps: • The magnet is held to prevent it from rotating, while the disc is spun on its axis. The result is that the galvanometer registers a
direct current. The apparatus therefore acts as a
generator, variously called the Faraday generator, the
Faraday disc, or the
homopolar (or unipolar) generator. • The disc is held stationary while the magnet is spun on its axis. The result is that the galvanometer registers no current. • The disc and magnet are spun together. The galvanometer registers a current, as it did in step 1.
Why is this paradoxical? The experiment is described by some as a "paradox" as it seems, at first sight, to violate Faraday's law of electromagnetic induction, because the flux through the disc appears to be the same no matter what is rotating. Hence, the EMF is predicted to be zero in all three cases of rotation. The discussion below shows this viewpoint stems from an incorrect choice of surface over which to calculate the flux. The paradox appears a bit different from the lines of flux viewpoint: in Faraday's model of electromagnetic induction, a
magnetic field consisted of imaginary
lines of
magnetic flux, similar to the lines that appear when iron filings are sprinkled on paper and held near a magnet. The EMF is proposed to be proportional to the rate of cutting lines of flux. If the lines of flux are imagined to originate in the magnet, then they would be stationary in the frame of the magnet, and rotating the disc relative to the magnet, whether by rotating the magnet or the disc, should produce an EMF, but rotating both of them together should not.
Faraday's explanation In Faraday's model of electromagnetic induction, a circuit received an induced current when it cut lines of magnetic flux. According to this model, the Faraday disc should have worked when either the disc or the magnet was rotated, but not both. Faraday attempted to explain the disagreement with observation by assuming that the magnet's field, complete with its lines of flux, remained stationary as the magnet rotated (a completely accurate picture, but maybe not intuitive in the lines-of-flux model). In other words, the lines of flux have their own frame of reference. As is shown in the next section, modern physics (since the discovery of the
electron) does not need the lines-of-flux picture and dispels the paradox.
Modern explanations A circuit is not necessarily a loop In
step 1, the paradox can be readily solved: the circuit does not constitute a simple loop of wire, as postulated by Faraday's law of induction; it is rather the union of two loops, because the current can flow through the two halves of the rim (see figure 2). If, on the other hand, one keep only one part of the rim from the radius junction to the brush, then the whole circuit is now a true loop whose shape varies with the time; then Faraday's law applies and leads to correct results.
Taking the return path into account In
step 2, since there is no current observed, one might conclude that the magnetic field did not rotate with the rotating magnet. (Whether it does or does not effectively or relatively, the Lorentz force is zero since
v is zero relative to the laboratory frame. So there is no current measuring from laboratory frame.) The use of the Lorentz equation to explain this paradox has led to a debate in the literature as to whether or not a magnetic field rotates with a magnet. Since the force on charges expressed by the Lorentz equation depends upon the relative motion of the magnetic field (i.e. the laboratory frame) to the conductor where the EMF is located it was speculated that in the case when the magnet rotates with the disk but a voltage still develops, the magnetic field (i.e. the laboratory frame) must therefore not rotate with the magnetic material (of course since it is the laboratory frame), while the effective definition of magnetic field frame or the "effective/relative rotation of the field" turns with no relative motion with respect to the conductive disk. Careful thought showed that, if the magnetic field was assumed to rotate with the magnet and the magnet rotated with the disk, a current should still be produced, not by EMF in the disk (there is no relative motion between the disk and the magnet) but in the external circuit linking the brushes, which is in fact in relative motion with respect to the rotating magnet. (The brushes are in the laboratory frame.) This mechanism agrees with the observations involving return paths: an EMF is generated whenever the disc moves relative to the return path, regardless of the rotation of the magnet. In fact it was shown that so long as a current loop is used to measure induced EMFs from the motion of the disk and magnet it is not possible to tell if the magnetic field does or does not rotate with the magnet. (This depends on the definition, the motion of a field can be only defined effectively/relatively. If you hold the view that the field flux is a physical entity, it does rotate or depends on how it is generated. But this does not alter what is used in the Lorentz formula, especially the
v, the velocity of the
charge carrier relative to the frame where measurement takes place and field strength varies according to relativity at any spacetime point.) Several experiments have been proposed using electrostatic measurements or electron beams to resolve the issue, but apparently none have been successfully performed to date.
Using the Lorentz force (of charge
q) in motion (instantaneous velocity
v). The
E field and
B field vary in space and time. The force
F acting on a particle of
electric charge q with instantaneous velocity
v, due to an external electric field
E and magnetic field
B, is given by the Lorentz force: {{Equation box 1 where × is the vector
cross product. All boldface quantities are vectors. The
relativistically-correct electric field of a point charge varies with velocity as: : \mathbf{E} = \frac{q}{4\pi \epsilon_0} \frac{1-v^2/c^2}{(1-v^2\sin^2\theta/c^2)^{3/2}}\frac{\mathbf{\hat r'}}{|\mathbf r'|^2} where \mathbf \hat r' is the
unit vector pointing from the current (non-retarded) position of the particle to the point at which the field is being measured, and θ is the angle between \mathbf v and \mathbf r'. The magnetic field
B of a charge is: Mathematically, the law is stated: :\mathcal{E} = - \frac {d \Phi_B} {dt} = -\frac {d}{dt}\iint_{\Sigma (t)} d \mathbf{A} \cdot \mathbf{B} (\mathbf{r},\ t) \ , where ΦB is the flux, and
dA is a vector element of area of a moving surface
Σ(
t) bounded by the loop around which the EMF is to be found. How can this law be connected to the Faraday disc generator, where the flux linkage appears to be just the B-field multiplied by the area of the disc? One approach is to define the notion of "rate of change of flux linkage" by drawing a hypothetical line across the disc from the brush to the axle and asking how much flux linkage is swept past this line per unit time. See Figure 2. Assuming a radius
R for the disc, a sector of disc with central angle
θ has an area: : A = \frac {\theta}{2\pi} \pi R^2 \ , so the rate that flux sweeps past the imaginary line is :\mathcal{E} = - \frac {d \Phi_B} {dt} = B \frac{dA} {dt} = B\ \frac {R^2}{2}\ \frac {d \theta}{dt} =B\ \frac {R^2}{2}\omega \ , with
ω =
dθ /
dt the angular rate of rotation. The sign is chosen based upon
Lenz's law: the field generated by the motion must oppose the change in flux caused by the rotation. For example, the circuit with the radial segment in Figure 2 according to the right-hand rule
adds to the applied B-field, tending to increase the flux linkage. That suggests that the flux through this path is decreasing due to the rotation, so
dθ /
dt is negative. This flux-cutting result for EMF can be compared to calculating the work done per unit charge making an infinitesimal test charge traverse the hypothetical line using the Lorentz force / unit charge at radius
r, namely =
Bv =
Brω: : \mathcal{E} = \int_0^R dr Br \omega = \frac {R^2}{2} B \omega \ , which is the same result. The above methodology for finding the flux cut by the circuit is formalized in the flux law by properly treating the time derivative of the bounding surface Σ(
t). Of course, the time derivative of an integral with time-dependent limits is
not simply the integral of the time derivative of the integrand alone, a point often forgotten; see
Leibniz integral rule and
Lorentz force. In choosing the surface Σ(
t), the restrictions are that (i) it has to be bounded by a closed curve around which the EMF is to be found, and (ii) it has to capture the relative motion of all moving parts of the circuit. It is emphatically
not required that the bounding curve corresponds to a physical line of flow of the current. On the other hand, induction is all about relative motion, and the path emphatically
must capture any relative motion. In a case like Figure 1 where a portion of the current path is distributed over a region in space, the EMF driving the current can be found using a variety of paths. Figure 2 shows two possibilities. All paths include the obvious return loop, but in the disc two paths are shown: one is a geometrically simple path, the other a tortuous one. We are free to choose whatever path we like, but a portion of any acceptable path is
fixed in the disc itself and turns with the disc. The flux is calculated though the entire path, return loop
plus disc segment, and its rate-of change found. In this example, all these paths lead to the same rate of change of flux, and hence the same EMF. To provide some intuition about this path independence, in Figure 3 the Faraday disc is unwrapped onto a strip, making it resemble a sliding rectangle problem. In the sliding rectangle case, it becomes obvious that the pattern of current flow inside the rectangle is time-independent and therefore irrelevant to the rate of change of flux linking the circuit. There is no need to consider exactly how the current traverses the rectangle (or the disc). Any choice of path connecting the top and bottom of the rectangle (axle-to-brush in the disc) and moving with the rectangle (rotating with the disc) sweeps out the same rate-of-change of flux, and predicts the same EMF. For the disc, this rate-of-change of flux estimation is the same as that done above based upon rotation of the disc past a line joining the brush to the axle.
Configuration with a return path Whether the magnet is "moving" is irrelevant in this analysis, due to the flux induced in the return path. The crucial relative motion is that of the disk and the return path, not of the disk and the magnet. This becomes clearer if a modified Faraday disk is used in which the return path is not a wire but another disk. That is, mount two conducting disks just next to each other on the same axle and let them have sliding electrical contact at the center and at the circumference. The current will be proportional to the relative rotation of the two disks and independent of any rotation of the magnet.
Configuration without a return path A Faraday disk can also be operated with neither a galvanometer nor a return path. When the disk spins, the electrons collect along the rim and leave a deficit near the axis (or the other way around). It is possible in principle to measure the distribution of charge, for example, through the
electromotive force generated between the rim and the axle (though not necessarily easy). This charge separation will be proportional to the relative rotational velocity between the disk and the magnet. ==Paradoxes in which Faraday's law of induction seems to predict non-zero EMF but actually predicts zero EMF==