Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-physics-course-of-the-year-1-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2014/paper-1/e15/c/solution

For steady currents in vacuum, the Biot-Savart law sums the contributions of current elements:
It is useful for known wire geometries; a circular loop of radius gives at its centre.
Ampère's circuital law in magnetostatics is
With sufficient symmetry it finds fields directly: a long straight wire gives , while a long solenoid has interior and a small exterior field away from its ends. Without symmetry, a circulation value alone does not determine the local field. For time-dependent electric fields, use the Ampère-Maxwell equation with the displacement-current term as well as conduction current.

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