Recent content by Space Crumpet

Thank you, everyone, for your thought-provoking responses. The crux of the problem seems to be the source of the initial magnetic field which kicks the dynamo process off. As near as I can tell, there is no consensus on where this comes from, although there are many theories. Some or all of them...

Same Wikipedia article

I accept the motion of the core and, without loss of generality, its convection currents. It could be a hot swirling mess, but that still only gives us a conductor and motion; it does not provide the electric current that is also required to generate a magnetic field. The Wikipedia article...

A core tenet of electrical engineering is that to generate a current, you need three things: a conductor, a magnetic field, and motion. We assume the components are arranged appropriately, but then, quite simply, if you move a conductor through a magnetic field, you get current. Alternatively...