A Magnetic Exercise Machine you have designed a new type of exercise machine with an extremely simple mechanism (Fig. 29.36). A vertical bar of silver (chosen for its low resistivity and because it makes the machine look cool) with length L = 3.0 m is free to move left or right without friction on silver rails. The entire apparatus is placed in a horizontal, uniform magnetic field of strength 0.25 T. When you push the bar to the left or right, the bar's motion sets op a current in the circuit that includes the bar. The resistance of the bar and the rails can be neglected. The magnetic field exerts a force on the current-carrying bar, and this force opposes the bar's motion. The health benefit is from the exercise that you do in working against this force.
(a) Your design goal is that the person doing the exercise is to do work at the rate of25 watts when moving the bar at a steady 2.0 m/s. What should be the resistance R?
(b) You decide you want to be able to vary the power required from the person, to adapt the machine to the person's strength and fitness. If the power is to be increased to 50 W by altering R while leaving the other design parameters constant, should R be increased or decreased? Calculate the value of R for 50 W.
(c) When you start to construct a prototype machine, you find it is difficult to produce a 0.25-T magnetic field over such a large area. If you decrease the length of the bar to 0.20 m while leaving B, v, and R the same as in part (a), what will be the power required of the person?