Metal Detectors

Metal Detectors

   Metal Detectors are used often all around the world. Some are used at airports, some are used by people finding treasures, and some also save peoples lives by uncovering hidden mines underground. I wanted to know more about metal detectors so here is what I learned. Metal Detectors work by making a electromagnetic field using electricity. This is like when you wrap a wire around a nail and hook it up to a battery. A smart Scottish physicist named James Clerk Maxwel came up with the idea of you can make electricity with magnetism and magnetism with electricity. A metal detector has some wire that is wrapped around a circular know known as the transmitter coil. When electricity goes around the wire, a magnetic field is created around it. When a magnetic field finds metal it goes straight through it. This creates an electric current and causes another magnetic field. This goes back up to another wire and connects another electric current through a loud speaker. This alerts whoever is holding the metal detector that there is something below.







Source: Woodford Chris, Metal Detectors:http://www.explainthatstuff.com/metaldetectors.html