Lakhasly

Introduction

What do windshield wipers, CD players, DVD recorders, blenders, ice makers, laptops, and walking toys have in common?In fact, you can walk through your house and find many electric motors hidden in electrical devices, appliances, and toys in every room.You can detect the existence of a magnetic field and identify the north/south pole with a compass (which is basically a bar magnet mounted so that it can rotate), as shown in Figure 1, below.In summary, like poles (north-north or south-south) repel, opposite poles (north-south) attract.As you've probably seen, magnets are typically black, so there is no visible way to tell which end is north and which is south.The stronger the magnets, the more forceful the attraction / repulsion is between them.They all contain electric motors.Have you ever played with magnets?

Introduction

What do windshield wipers, CD players, DVD recorders, blenders, ice makers, laptops, and walking toys have in common? They all contain electric motors. In fact, you can walk through your house and find many electric motors hidden in electrical devices, appliances, and toys in every room. The electric motors are not always obvious in devices, and you might need to do some background research about how the devices work to discover where their motors are hidden. Electric motors are an important, and even vital, part of our world today.

But, you may have wondered, just how do those electric motors work? Have you ever played with magnets? If so, you are well on your way to understanding how simple electric motors work. Magnets produce a magnetic field with a north pole and a south pole. If you try to push the north poles of two magnets together, they will not want to come together. Instead, they will repel each other. The same thing happens if you try to push two south poles together. If, however, you bring the north pole of one magnet close to the south pole of another, they will attract each other and stick together. In summary, like poles (north-north or south-south) repel, opposite poles (north-south) attract. The stronger the magnets, the more forceful the attraction / repulsion is between them. As you've probably seen, magnets are typically black, so there is no visible way to tell which end is north and which is south. You can detect the existence of a magnetic field and identify the north/south pole with a compass (which is basically a bar magnet mounted so that it can rotate), as shown in Figure 1, below.