Wire Attraction/repulsion

Consists of a seven foot tall white wooden board with a base so it remains vertical. Attached to the top and bottom are two pairs of wires. One of them connected in series with each other, the the other in parallel. At the bottom are fixtures to attach the wires to a power supply.

To demonstrate the formation of magnetic fields around currents and the resulting Lorentz forces, to show how wires with current flowing in the same direction attract while wires with current flowing in opposite directions repel.

• Attraction/Repulsion setup (pictured)
• High-current power supply: this or this will work.

Plug in the power supply and connect the wires to the setup. Set the supply to output 60A and turn on briefly, for no longer than 3 seconds.

Do not leave the power supply turned on for longer than 3 seconds at a time. Joule heating in the wire may begin to melt or burn the insulation.