What will happen to a compass needle when the compass is placed below a wire and a current is made to flow through the wire? Give a reason to justify your answer.
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Solution
The compass is placed below a wire and a current is made to flow through the wire:
When a current is made to flow through a wire, it creates a magnetic field around the wire, whose direction can be found by using the Right-hand thumb rule.
Let the current is flowing from the east-west direction.
So the direction of the magnetic field is from south to north below the wire.
Now if we place a compass needle below the wire, it will get affected by the magnetic field of the wire and deflects north-south direction.
Therefore, the compass needle deflects the north-south direction when placed below a wire carrying current.
