WEBER AND EWING MOLECULAR THEORY

This theory was first advanced by Weber in 1852 and was, later on, further developed by Ewing in 1890. The basic assumption of this theory is that molecules of all substances are inherently magnets in themselves, each having N and S pole. In an un-magnetized state, it is supposed that these small molecular magnets lie in all sorts of haphazard manner forming more or less closed loops. According to the laws of attraction and repulsion, these closed magnetic circuits are satisfied internally, hence there is no resultant external magnetism exhibited by the iron bar. But when such an iron bar is placed in a magnetic field or under the influence of a magnetizing force, then these molecular magnets start turning round their axes and orientate themselves more or less along straight lines parallel to the direction of the magnetizing force. This linear arrangement of the molecular magnets results in N polarity at one end of the bar and S polarity at the other (seen in figure). As the small magnets turn more nearly in the direction of the magnetizing force, it requires more and more of this force to produce a given turning moment, thus accounting for the magnetic saturation. On this theory, the hysteresis loss is supposed to be due to molecular friction of these turning magnets.

Because of the limited knowledge of molecular structure available at the time of Weber, it was not possible to explain firstly, as to why the molecules themselves are magnets and secondly, why it is impossible to magnetize certain substances like wood etc. The first objection was explained by Ampere who maintained that orbital movement of the electrons round the atom of a molecule constituted a flow of current which, due to its associated magnetic effect, made the molecule a magnet. Later on, it became difficult to explain the phenomenon of diamagnetism (shown by materials like water, quartz, silver and copper etc.) erratic behavior of ferromagnetic (intensely magnetisable) substances like iron, steel, cobalt, nickel and some of their alloys etc. and the paramagnetic (weakly magnetisable) substances like oxygen and aluminum etc. Moreover, it was asked: if molecules of all substances are magnets, then why does not wood or air etc. become magnetized?

All this has been explained satisfactorily by the atom-domain theory which has superseded the molecular theory. It is beyond the scope of this book to go into the details of this theory. The interested reader is advised to refer to some standard book on magnetism. However, it may just be mentioned that this theory takes into account not only the planetary motion of an electron but its rotation about its own axis as well. This latter rotation is called ‘electron spin’. The gyroscopic behavior of an electron gives rise to a magnetic moment which may be either positive or negative. A substance is ferromagnetic or diamagnetic accordingly as there is an excess of unbalanced positive spins or negative spins. Substances like wood or air are non-magnetisable because in their case, the positive and negative electron spins are equal, hence they cancel each other out.