How to Make an Electromagnet

Hi. My name is Hose Sanches from the National High Magnetic Field Lab. Today we're going to show you how to make an electromagnet. If you have a current carrying wire which is just basically a conductor that has electrons moving through it, you produce a magnetic field around the wire. If I take that wire and make it into a loop like this, I increase the magnetic field because those magnetic fields now interact at the middle of the coil and if I increase the number of turns in that coil I also increase the magnetic field. Another way of multiplying the magnetic field would be to introduce an iron core into the center of that coil. So, as you can see, once I have wrapped this iron bar with many turns, I can pick up paper clips with it, because I have essentially made an electromagnet.