Around 170 years ago, in his experiments, Faraday discovered that when a magnet is rotated, the field lines that it generates within and through the atmosphere do not rotate in concert.
Francisco Müller in his paper “Unipolar Induction Revisited” writes:-
“The problem of unipolar induction arises from experiments performed by Michael Faraday in 1832 as part of his investigation of electromagnetic induction.
These experiments created some difficulties that Faraday sought to answer in a series of experiments that he performed in 1851. These experiments resulted in the surprising conclusion that the magnetic field lines do not rotate or participate in the rotational motion of the magnetic lines of force, which produces an electromotive force or emf.”
“Rotating a copper disk above a magnet (Fig. A) Faraday induced a current in OECR. Rotating disk AND magnet together he obtained the same result, (Fig. B) and also removing the disk altogether (Fig. C). WHERE is the seat of induction in the latter case? Along OR, within the magnet? Or along ECR?”
(Müller notes that physicist Wilhelm Eduard Weber introduced the phrase “unipolar induction”, “probably because only one pole of the magnet is involved”)
http://www.marmet.org/louis/induction_faraday/mueller/muller.htm
When this copper disk is rotated in the magnets field, as is observed a current is generated, and when both are rotated in concert the same current is generated.
This demonstrates clearly that the field generated by the magnet is transmitted to the copper disk and is acting directly through it, as is depicted in Müller’s images above.
The question now is how is the field transferred through the copper disk.
The image, X, below depicts the currently accepted, i.e. the hypothetical structural arrangement of the atoms in an isolated copper disk, where it is said the atoms are randomly aligned and are rotating and vibrating in place.
But when this copper disk is placed above the strong iron magnet, for this magnetic field to emanate, to act, through the copper and as observed emerge from the top surface into the atmosphere (as in A & B above), and to then link onwards to the south pole of the magnet, it means that the fields of all the copper atoms are induced into alignment with the strong N-S field of the permanent iron magnet, as depicted in Image Y.
In scientific publications it is asserted that most elements, including copper, are non-magnetic.
Faraday was made aware that the flames of a fire deviate when subjected to a magnetic field, and his experiments showed that a piece of plate glass, when placed vertically between two magnets placed N-S, was induced into partially rotating in their mutual field.
Other more recent experiments were carried out with a wooden toothpick placed horizontally between two magnets, which then rotated 90° into a vertical alignment with their N-S field.
This proves that matter in general is influenced by a magnetic field, and it is quite obvious for these interactions to occur, it means that the field is transmitted directly through these materials.
Muller added that Faraday’s –
“conclusion was received as counter-intuitive and has been resisted as the correct explanation ever since.
There is an extensive literature detailing arguments both for and against the conclusion advanced by Faraday.
Opponents argue that the magnetic field lines do rotate with the magnet and present experiments and arguments that support that position.”
Such a rotative motion of the field is indicated in the diagram below, but the facts are that, over the intervening 200 years, no experiment has been carried out that proves this alternative conjecture.
In the following image the magnet is again reduced to sub-microscopic dimensions to show its atomic structure, where in the vertical image all the individual iron atoms of this permanent magnet are shown aligned N-S and, as is observed, the magnetic field generated by the magnet does not rotate in concert.
But as this field is, of hypothetical necessity, said to be independent of the discontinuous ‘kinetic’ atoms of the atmosphere and thus acts through the relatively huge volume of interceding vacuum, there can be no resistance to a rotative motion of the generated magnetic field through this vacuum, in such hypothetical circumstances.
Of course the magnetic field generated by a strong magnet acts around it continuously, laterally and longitudinally and, accordingly there is no ultimate, dimensional point where the field is not acting within the atmospheric gases between the poles of the magnet.
There is only one possible reason for this observed static magnetic field, which is that the field is not acting independently of the gases surrounding the magnet but is acting directly through the atoms of static atmospheric gases.
In this case it is obvious that the magnetic field propagates at the speed of light, but the rotative motion of the magnet within the field is in relative terms minuscule at (say) 60 rpm.
And so while the internal magnetic field acting within the magnet itself is rotating at 60 rpm, the external magnetic field generated by the magnet, and acting at the speed of light in the atmosphere, is essentially static.
But as a magnetic field cannot possibly act and react within and through a vacuum, of any minuscule, hypothetical, inter-atomic volume, it is therefore propagating directly atom to atom through a continuum of atmospheric gases.
The atoms, which compose the atmosphere, are naturally aligned to the Earth’s observed, and continuous, magnetic field, and from which alignment they are diverted by the far stronger local field of an iron magnet.
There is no other possible explanation for Faraday’s experimental results.
The image below is of a magnet rotating at 60 rpm within the static and continuous atmospheric gases surrounding it, and which rotative motion is generating an emf.
