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Re: magnetic north and south



More specifically, the compass needle sorient along the lines of a field
in such a way that the direction from the label N to label S concides with
the direction of the field. The advantage of this convention is that it
will remain valid after the next field reversal, or on another planet, etc.

A better convention (more general) is to say that the end of a magnet
from which the field lines are emerging is N while the end toward which
they are converging is S. How can one tell? By watching the compass. The
S to N segment of the needle coincides with the direction of B.

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On 5/5/98 William Newbolt <NewboltW@madison.acad.wlu.edu> wrote:

If you really want to talk about something interesting, we might try to
make some sense out of the generation of the earth's magnetic field.
Yes, I know, it is supposed to be some type of self-excited generator
making large currents which generate the field. That really doesn't
help me much.

It would be great if somebody could describe the "self-exciting dynamo"
model in a language suitable for an introductory physics course.