| TheTarget | 26th June 2006 20:09 | How Perpendicular Recording Works Data is read and write on magnetic disks thanks to the electromagnetism physics phenomena. In 1820 a physicist called Hans Christian Oersted observed while he was preparing a lab class for his Physics students that an electrical current flowing in a wire moved the needle of a compass located near this wire. When the electrical current was shut down, the compass needle went back showing the location of Earth’s magnetic north pole. With that, he came to the conclusion that all conductors (wires) create a magnetic field around them when an electrical current is flowing. When the direction (polarity) of this electrical current is reversed, so is the polarity of the magnetic field. |