Yahoo Answers is shutting down on May 4th, 2021 (Eastern Time) and beginning April 20th, 2021 (Eastern Time) the Yahoo Answers website will be in read-only mode. There will be no changes to other Yahoo properties or services, or your Yahoo account. You can find more information about the Yahoo Answers shutdown and how to download your data on this help page.
Trending News
About physics?
I'm confused on the term "net". Last night the book asked for the net magnetic field on acting on a point, so I added the magnitude of the fields. But now I's calculating the net force acting on a wire, and this time I'm supposed to subtract. Is it because the 2 forces acting upon wire have opposite directions?
1 Answer
- az_lenderLv 74 years ago
Yes, if forces point in opposite directions, the "net" force is the difference. In your problem last night, the only way it would make sense to add up the magnitudes of all the fields would be if all the fields were pointing in the same direction. Otherwise, you have to use vector addition to get the "net" field.
