GITAM, Department of Engineering Physics

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Biot-Savart Law

The Biot-Savart Law relates magnetic fields to the currents which are their sources. In a similar manner, Coulomb's law relates electric fields to the point charges which are their sources. Finding the magnetic field resulting from a current distribution involves the vector product, and is inherently a calculus problem when the distance from the current to the field point is continuously changing.

Each infinitesmal current element makes a contribution to the magnetic field at point P which is perpendicular to the current element, and perpendicular to the radius vector from the current element to the field point P. is the magnetic field contribution at P from the current element The relationship between the magnetic field contribution and its source current element is called the Biot-Savart law.

See the magnetic field sketched for the straight wire to see the geometry of the magnetic field of a current.

Biot-Savart Law Applications

 

 

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