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Glite Dictionary
line of force

line of force

1 7.2
An imaginary line that shows the direction of force at points in an electric or magnetic field
  • noun
  • Specialized
translation icon : línea de fuerza
  • But it's useful graphically to just think of it as lines of force, and the lines of force neither begin nor end except the charged particles.
  • magnetic lines of force

You want that line of force, if you extended it, to go through your center of mass, Right.

Examples

  • When a charge is placed in an electric field, it experiences a force along the lines of force radiating from another charge.

  • We cannot see a magnetic line of force until it interacts with a material object such as iron filings and alters their behavior in space.

    Blog text (4)

  • And he thought these lines of force were real physical things, right?

  • You want that line of force, if you extended it, to go through your center of mass, Right.

    StarTalk

  • Let's say it's a point mass and imagine lines of force coming out of it.

  • You take one charge Q and you draw the lines of force coming from the one charge.

  • It increased their efficiency by concentrating magnetic lines of force.

    Blog text (34)

  • The scientist demonstrated how magnetic lines of force indicate the direction of magnetic fields.

  • In physics, lines of force are used to illustrate the strength and direction of a vector field around charged particles.

Synonyms

field line
vsline of force
  • Specialized
1 7.6

An imaginary line that shows the direction of the force around magnets or electric charges

has identical meaning but differs only in the term used

Surface Forms

line of force singular
lines of force plural

Morphology

line + of + force

The meaning is directly compositional: combining 'line' (a conceptual mark) with 'of force' yields an imagined line associated with force and its direction. Although it's a technical physics term, the constituent meanings are sufficient for a B1 learner to infer the general concept (and many languages use the same construction, e.g. Spanish 'línea de fuerza'), so it is transparently understandable.

Etymology

Line of force comes from simple diagrams that draw an imaginary line to show the path a small compass needle would follow under a force. So a line of force is an 'imaginary' path that shows the 'direction' the force would push or pull.