Page:Conservationofen00stew.djvu/118

102 will be to stop the motion of the primary current from the secondary one, or, in other words, there will be a disappearance of the energy of visible motion, while at the same time there is the production of a current. In both cases, therefore, one form of energy disappears while another takes its place, and in both there will be a very perceptible resistance experienced in moving the primary coil, whether towards the secondary or from it. Work will, in fact, have to be spent in both operations, and the outcome of this work or energy will be the production of a current in the first place, and of heat in the second; for we learn from Art. 98 that when a current passes along a wire its energy is generally spent in heating the wire.

We have thus two phenomena occurring together. In the first place, in moving a current of electricity to and from a coil of wire, or any other conductor, or (which is the same thing, since action and reaction are equal and opposite) in moving a coil of wire or any other conductor to and from a current of electricity, a sense of resistance will be experienced, and energy will have to be spent upon the process; in the second place, an electrical current will be generated in the conductor, and the conductor will be heated in consequence.

143. The result will be rendered very prominent if we cause a metallic top, in rapid rotation, to spin near two iron poles, which, by means of the battery, we can suddenly convert into the poles of a powerful