Page:Conservationofen00stew.djvu/116

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
100
THE CONSERVATION OF ENERGY.

battery were quickly moved into the presence of another coil connected with a galvanometer, an induced current would be venerated in the latter coil, and would affect the galvanometer, its direction being the reverse of that passing in the other. Now, an electric current implies energy, and we may therefore conclude that some other form of energy must be spent, or disappear, in order to produce the current which is generated in the coil attached to the galvanometer.

Again, we learn from Art. 100 that two currents going in opposite directions repel one another. The current generated in the coil attached to the galvanometer or secondary current will, therefore, repel the primary current, which is moving towards it; this repulsion will either cause a stoppage of motion, or render necessary the expenditure of energy, in order to keep up the motion of this moving coil. We thus find that two phenomena occur simultaneously. In the first place, there is the production of energy in the secondary coil, in the shape of a current opposite in direction to that of the primary coil; in the next case, owing to the repulsion between this induced current and the primary current, there is a stoppage or disappearance of the energy of actual motion of the moving coil. We have, in fact, the creation of one species of energy, and at the same time the disappearance of another, and thus we see that the law of conservation is by no means broken.

141. We see also the necessary connection between the