Martian
Senior Member
In the dynamic situation, that's certainly true. But there's another thing that happens with a static magnetic field, due to the Lorentz force. Basically, because some electrons are free to move through a conductor & they already tend to have a nonzero velocity, the Lorentz force causes them to move in a circle.An opposing field is only created when a magnetic field is moving toward the conductor. If you pull a magnet away from a conductor, the induced field in the conductor reverses direction and becomes attractive. You can uses Faraday's left hand rule to visualize this. Don't worry about the math. Just stick with what is real.
F = qv x B
If you use the right hand rule and the definition of the magnetic field in terms of the magnetic potential (which is proportional to the velocity of an individual charged particle), you'll see that the charged particles are bent into a path that creates a magnetic field opposite to the external one. It's how thin layers of diamagnetic materials are able to float over a strong magnet.
And I love math.
