magnetic lines of force

pl.n.

Curved lines used to represent a magnetic field, drawn such that the number of lines relates to the magnetic field's strength at a given point and the tangent of any curve at a particular point is along the direction of magnetic force at that point.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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References in periodicals archive

We recognise that although we have discarded the rays, an equally appealing picture is to be had in terms of the electric and magnetic lines of force. These are the elements that our new theory is designed to manipulate, retaining the pictorial element so vital to our intuition.

Controlling Light on the Nanoscale

The flux-freezing theorem dictates that the magnetic lines of force should flow away in lock-step with the particles, whole and unbroken.

Culprit behind magnetic field misbehavior in solar flares identified

The likely culprit is the release of energy from stressed magnetic lines of force, but researchers don't know the details of how that works (S&T: October 2012, page 16).

Astronomers zoom in on solar hairs

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