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Difference between Electricity and Magnetism
The terms electricity and magnetism came into existence thousands of years ago and for a long period of time, both the electricity and magnetism are supposed two different and unrelated phenomena. But, in 1820, a Danish physicist Hans Christian Oersted discovered the relationship between electricity and magnetism by his experiment. Oersted found in his experiment that a current flowing through a wire deflects the needle of a magnetic compass placed near to it. By this observation, he concluded that the flow of electric current (or movement of charge) produces a magnetic field in its nearby region.
In 1831, Michael Faraday shown that a changing magnetic field gives rise to electricity in a conductor. In this way, these experiments proved that the electricity and magnetism are the two interrelated phenomenon giving rise to the study of electromagnetism.
What is Electricity?
Electricity is the term which represents a form of energy. Technically, electricity is a physical phenomenon which is due to the accumulation and movement of electric charges. Depending upon the nature of charges, electricity can be of two types viz. static electricity and current electricity.
The static electricity represents the electricity that is caused by accumulation of electric charges on the surface of an object. It is called static electric because it is due to the charges at rest. On the other hand, electricity which exists due to the flow of electric charges is known as current electricity.
What is Magnetism?
Magnetism is a physical phenomenon which is caused due to the movement of electric charges and results in the attraction and repulsion between bodies.
We observed in practice that a magnet has ability to attract some specific objects (which are made of ferrous materials). It is magnetism which makes a magnet to stick to another magnet or metals.
There are some materials exist in nature that shows their own magnetism, these are known as magnetic materials. However, it is well established by a number of scientific experiments that a current flowing through a wire produces a magnetic field around it. Hence, in simple words, it can be said that the current electricity can give rise the magnetism.
Difference between Electricity and Magnetism
Although electricity and magnetism are two interrelated phenomena, there are many differences between magnetism and electricity that are highlighted in the following table −
Basis of Difference | Electricity | Magnetism |
|---|---|---|
Definition | Electricity is the physical phenomenon caused by the accumulation or movement of electric charges. | Magnetism is a physical phenomenon which is caused by the movement of charges and results in the attraction and repulsion between objects. |
Cause | The accumulation or movement of electric charges is the cause of existence of electricity. | Magnetism is caused only due to the movement of charges. |
Existence | Electricity can exist even without the existence of magnetism, such as static or friction electricity. | Magnetism can never exist without current electricity (i.e. without movement of electric charges). |
Field | Electricity produces both electric field (in static and current electricity) and magnetic field (in current electricity). | Magnetism produces only magnetic field. |
Type | Electricity is of two types − static electricity and current electricity. | Magnetism is of two types − natural (or permanent) magnetism and electromagnetism. |
Charge / Pole | The term ‘charge’ is associated with electricity. The charge is of two types, i.e. positive charge and negative charge. | The term ‘pole’ is associated with magnetism. The two poles are there viz. north pole and south pole. |
Monopole | The monopole exists in electricity, which means there a negative charge alone or positive charge alone can happen. | The monopole does not exist in magnetism, which means the magnetic poles always appear in the form of a pair of opposite poles viz. north pole and south pole. Hence, in magnetism, only dipole exists. |
Measuring instrument | There are a number devices available such as ammeter, galvanometer, multimeter, electrostatic field meter, gold leaf electroscope, etc. to determine the existence and measure the strength of electricity. | A device named magnetometer is used to measure the magnetism. |
| Strength | The strength of electricity is expressed in terms of electric field. | The strength of magnetism is expressed in terms of magnetic field. |
| Isolation | Electric charges can be easily isolated, i.e., positive and negative charges can be separated. | Magnetic poles cannot be isolated. Thus, the magnetic poles (north and south) always exist in a pair. |
| Applications | The practical applications of electricity involve: production of light, running a fan or motor, operating computer and other electronic appliances, etc. | Magnetism is used in many applications like compass, data storage in computers, door of fridge, electrical machines, speakers, etc. |
Conclusion
Electricity and magnetism are two related physical phenomena; these are more like two sides of the same coin because changing electricity (current electricity) produces magnetism and changing magnetism produces electricity. However, there are many differences between electricity and magnetism that are described in the above table.
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