Question

State and explain the clock face rule for determining the polarities of a circular wire carrying current.

Answer 1

The clock face rule is a rule that makes it easy to learn about the direction of current flowing in a circular wire as clockwise or anticlockwise. By learning this basic concept we can answer the above question easily.

Complete step-by-step answer:
Here, the clock rule says that “When an observer, looking at the face of the coil, finds the current to be flowing in the anti-clockwise direction, here the face of the coil will behave like a North Pole, whereas if the current is in the clockwise direction, the face of the coil will behave like a South Pole.”
Further, if we go in detail for determining the polarities of a circular wire carrying current from the clock face rule we can conclude the following points:
1. If the current around the face of the circular wire or coil flows in the clockwise direction, then that face of the circular wire will be the South pole ( S-pole).
2. If the current around the face of the circular wire or coil flows in the anti-clockwise direction, then that face of the circular wire will be North pole ( N-pole).

Additional Information: Each magnet has two poles south pole and North Pole. The same pole when brought in contact repels each other, whereas when the two opposite poles are brought in contact with each other they attract.
An electric current is a stream of charged particles, such as electrons or ions, moving through an electrical conductor or space. It is measured as the net rate of flow of electric charge past a region.

Note: One should remember that the face of the circular wire will be towards south-pole, whenever the current flows in clockwise direction. Also, we can notice that this rule is only applicable for circular wires, not for any other material or object.