College Physics 10th Edition by Raymond Serway,Chris Vuille

Exercise 18

Two long, parallel wires, each with a mass per unit length of 40 g/m, are supported in a horizontal plane by 6.0-cm-long strings, as shown in Figure P19.72. Each wire carries the same current I , causing the wires to repel each other so that the angle between the supporting strings is 16°. (a) Are the currents in the same or opposite directions (b) Determine the magnitude of each current.