Grade 12 Physics · The flux through the loop
Making a field, then counting what gets through
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Making a field, then counting what gets through

Wind a wire into a long coil and the field inside comes out uniform: B=μ0NILB = \dfrac{\mu_0 N I}{L}, read aloud B equals mu-nought N I over L. BB is the field inside in teslas; NN is the total number of turns, a bare count with no units; II is the current in amperes; and LL is the length of the coil in metres — the coil's own length, NOT the length of wire wound onto it. Look at what that means: N/LN/L is turns per metre, so the field only cares how tightly the turns are packed, never how many there are in total.

Now count how much of a field gets through a loop. That is magnetic flux: Φ=BAcosθ\Phi = BA\cos\theta, read aloud phi equals B A cosine theta. Φ\Phi (the Greek letter phi) is the flux in webers (Wb); BB is the field in teslas; AA is the loop's area in square metres; and θ\theta is the angle between the field and the loop's NORMAL — the imaginary spike sticking straight out of the loop's face. Not the loop's plane. Face-on to the field: θ=0\theta = 0, cosine is 1, maximum flux. Edge-on: θ=90\theta = 90^\circ, cosine is 0, and nothing gets through at all.

One weber is exactly one tesla-square-metre — flux earns its own unit because it is the quantity the next lesson differentiates. And watch the two conversions this page keeps setting: coil lengths arrive in centimetres, loop areas in square centimetres, and a square metre holds ten thousand square centimetres, not a hundred.