When Earth Has Its Own Magnetic Field

Started by Solitary, August 14, 2013, 04:53:33 PM

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Solitary

QuoteThen why it is not considered a charged object?
Solitary
There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.

josephpalazzo

The same reason that an iron bar can have a magnetic field, yet has no net charge.

Solitary

Thank you! And here all this time I thought Earth has a charge (-), but ionosphere, also, has charge(+), that's why system "earth-ionosphere" is quasi-neutral.

Here's some details:

The earth's surface is charged with negative electricity, but no one knew for sure what keeps it charged. In areas of fair weather, an electric current flows between the earth and the air in a direction which would tend to dissipate the charge. It is not much of a current: only about 1,500 amperes, not much more for the entire earth than flows in a few power lines.

 But the electricity taken from the earth must be restored somehow or the earth's electric charge would soon drain away. An obvious guess is that thunderstorms somehow restore the lost charge, but no one had proved it. Three years ago the institution borrowed airplanes from the Air Force and began to measure electrical stirring in the still air above active thunderheads.

Sure enough, the instruments showed a current moving in the opposite direction to the current in fair-weather areas. The scientists figured that all the thunderstorms going on at one time generate a net current of about 1,500 amperes, just enough to balance the drain and keep the earth's charge constant. Now, is that the reason a magnet has no charge?  :-? Solitary
There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.

josephpalazzo

Quote from: "Solitary"Now, is that the reason a magnet has no charge?  :-? Solitary

Basic notion: static charges produce electric field, moving charges(electric current) produce magnetic field. Having an electric charge and having magnetic properties arises from different situations. Having a net charge means you subtract the positive and negative charges. If these two are equal, then the object is electrically neutral. Otherwise, it is positively or negatively charged. For magnetism, we must look at atoms, who themselves are tiny magnets. In most substances, the orientation of these tiny magnets are at random, making the object magnetically neutral. A subtance like iron has the ability to allow all the atoms to align themselves in a given direction. The earth interior is a mass of molten iron, and so it has a magnetic field surrounding it. So what makes a tiny atom a magnet? The electrons are constantly moving around the nucleus, hence you always have an electric current, which produces a magnetic field around the atom, even though it's electrically neutral.

Jack89

Pretty sure the earth's magnetic filed is generated by molten iron alloys moving around the outer core.

SGOS

I read that the Earth's mantle slips some around the molten core, something like the way generator armatures turn around whatever it is they turn around.  This then, creates an electro magnetic field, which accounts for magnetic North, and is apparently is not all that stable and shifts dramatically from time to time.  I used to think there must be a huge deposit of magnetite buried near the North Pole, but apparently not.

I also read that we could be overdue for a major pole shift, although this is based on some kind of average of time lengths between past pole shifts, which has been determined by geologists dating the formation of igneous rocks.  It appears iron crystals in the formation of these rocks line up with the Earth's magnetic fields, so they actually know where the poles were at various times in geologic history.  Damn, these guys are clever!

A pole shift is no small thing.  It's not like compasses just start pointing in a different direction. Apparently, there a brief time period (brief on a geological scale, anyway) during the shift when the Earth loses it's magnetism and no longer deflects charged particles of radiation toward the poles, which is not good for life on earth.  

But I wouldn't worry, because some prophet will no doubt tell us a month before it happens.  Obviously, some people are in awe of God's power, but I think scientific discovery is twice as awesome.

Solitary

Quote from: "josephpalazzo"
Quote from: "Solitary"Now, is that the reason a magnet has no charge?  :-? Solitary

Basic notion: static charges produce electric field, moving charges(electric current) produce magnetic field. Having an electric charge and having magnetic properties arises from different situations. Having a net charge means you subtract the positive and negative charges. If these two are equal, then the object is electrically neutral. Otherwise, it is positively or negatively charged. For magnetism, we must look at atoms, who themselves are tiny magnets. In most substances, the orientation of these tiny magnets are at random, making the object magnetically neutral. A subtance like iron has the ability to allow all the atoms to align themselves in a given direction. The earth interior is a mass of molten iron, and so it has a magnetic field surrounding it. So what makes a tiny atom a magnet? The electrons are constantly moving around the nucleus, hence you always have an electric current, which produces a magnetic field around the atom, even though it's electrically neutral.

Thank you! Can you explain how a permanent magnet can stick to a refrigerator door and not use any energy
just because it isn't moving and just stuck there working at staying stuck? And also, doesn't the constant moving of electrons defy the rule there can be no perpetual machine? Where do the electrons get their energy from to do that? Solitary
There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.

josephpalazzo

Quote from: "Solitary"
Quote from: "josephpalazzo"
Quote from: "Solitary"Now, is that the reason a magnet has no charge?  :-? Solitary

Basic notion: static charges produce electric field, moving charges(electric current) produce magnetic field. Having an electric charge and having magnetic properties arises from different situations. Having a net charge means you subtract the positive and negative charges. If these two are equal, then the object is electrically neutral. Otherwise, it is positively or negatively charged. For magnetism, we must look at atoms, who themselves are tiny magnets. In most substances, the orientation of these tiny magnets are at random, making the object magnetically neutral. A subtance like iron has the ability to allow all the atoms to align themselves in a given direction. The earth interior is a mass of molten iron, and so it has a magnetic field surrounding it. So what makes a tiny atom a magnet? The electrons are constantly moving around the nucleus, hence you always have an electric current, which produces a magnetic field around the atom, even though it's electrically neutral.

Thank you! Can you explain how a permanent magnet can stick to a refrigerator door and not use any energy
just because it isn't moving and just stuck there working at staying stuck? And also, doesn't the constant moving of electrons defy the rule there can be no perpetual machine? Where do the electrons get their energy from to do that? Solitary

Most metals have enough flexibility to allow their atoms, which are tiny magnets, to align themselves if there is a nearby magnetic field. It's called induced magnetism. So, if your refrigerator is made of metal - most are - then a permanent magnet will re-align the atoms on the side of the refrigerator, and north-south poles will attract. It takes very little energy to do that. There's no perpetual machine - once the atoms are re-aligned due to the presence of the magnet, there is no more motion taking place.

As to the electrons, they are moving just like the planets are moving around the sun. It's only if the electrons jumped from different orbits that energy is either absorbed or released. Also, because of QM, those energies come in quantas. And so the spectrum of an atom, say hydrogen, will have a discrete spectrum.