ABSTRACT
Both the wireless lamp and the induction furnace involve solenoids and therefore magnetic fields. However, the essential common ingredient is that in both cases the current flowing through those solenoids is not constant. Rather, it varies with time and, consequently, so does the magnetic field that each solenoid produces. Stated simply, electromagnetic induction is the effect whereby changing magnetic fields cause, or ‘induce’, currents. The chapter is concerned with the work of James Clerk Maxwell, who discovered that electric and magnetic fields can conspire together to create wave-like disturbances that travel at the same speed as that of light. If an electric current can create a magnetic field, it seems quite reasonable to ask if magnetic fields will have any influence on electric currents. In fact the statement that a changing magnetic field produces an electric field has been tested again and again, in many different circumstances.
