Magnitude of Force

We first learned of the French physicist André Ampere back when we discussed electric phenomena. He resurfaces in this lesson because he is responsible for discovering that a force is exerted on a current-carrying wire in a magnetic field. This force can be found by using the following equation:

where B is the magnetic field in Teslas (T), I is the current in amperes, L is the length of the wire in meters, and ? is the angle between the current and the magnetic field.