Luke Sturgeon — Visualising Electromagnetic Fields

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Interaction designer is an expert in his (electromagnetic) fields...

This project takes us back to the days of high school physics and Fleming’s left and right hand rules for electromagnetism – remember the ones where your fingers go at right angles to each other as a way of working out the direction of electromagnetic fields, and at the same time making you look like the world’s geekiest rapper? Who would have thought we’d be pulling that one out of the memory banks 20 years later… looks like we owe Mrs Richardson an apology, it was vaguely useful after all.

Before we lose you completely, this rambling reminiscence does have something to do with design, honest. Luke Sturgeon has been in Denmark, at the Copenhagen Institute of Interactive Design, conducting a series of experiments using sensors that record the magnetic fields created when a current is passed through a wire, turning the usually invisible phenomenon into something rather lovely. A cross between a science experiment and a photographic study, Luke and his team created their own Android mobile app to visualise the fields; if you’re of a technical persuasion we recommend you read Luke’s more detailed explanation of how the whole things developed. For now, we’re just going to look at the pretty pictures.

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