| the rate of change, at any point in space, of electric displacement with time. |
displacement current
in electromagnetism, a phenomenon analogous to an ordinary electric current, posited to explain magnetic fields that are produced by changing electric fields. Ordinary electric currents, called conduction currents, whether steady or varying, produce an accompanying magnetic field in the vicinity of the current. The British physicist James Clerk Maxwell in the 19th century predicted that a magnetic field also must be associated with a changing electric field even in the absence of a conduction current, a theory that was subsequently verified experimentally. As magnetic fields had long been associated with currents, the predicted magnetic field also was thought of as stemming from another kind of current. Maxwell gave it the name displacement current, which was proportional to the rate of change of the electric field that kept cropping up naturally in his theoretical formulations.
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