Thursday, August 26, 2010

Michael Faraday's Discovery (Wen Jiang's 3rd post)

I've more than once wondered how turbines, whether rotated by water, steam, or wind, generate electricity. Understanding (somewhat) about Faraday's discovery on how magnetism can be transformed into electricity gave me a comprehensive explanation for turbine electricity generation phenomenon. Faraday discovered that magnetism can be transformed into electricity by increasing or decreasing the supply of magnetism to a metallic receiver; and there's a direct relationship between the amount of electricity generated and the speed at which the magnetism is altered. In another words, the faster the magnet in a dynamo, a device that employs magnetism to generate electricity, rotates, the more electricity is generated. Since I don't think the chapter about electromagnetism mentioned any information on the requirement or limitation of the size of the magnet that's used to generate electricity, does that mean the size of the magnet doesn't matter? Or in another words, does this suggest that a smaller magnet and lager magnet spinning at the same rate (and with all other conditions same for both) generate the same amount of electricity? Even the equation itself doesn't suggest that the size of the magnet of dynamo matters. What do you think?

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