Lenz's law, named after the physicist Emil Lenz (pronounced ) who formulated it in 1834, states that the direction of the electric current which is induced in a conductor by a changing magnetic field is such that the magnetic field created by the induced current opposes changes in the initial magnetic field.
It is a qualitative law that specifies the direction of induced current, but states nothing about its magnitude. Lenz's law predicts the direction of many effects in electromagnetism, such as the direction of voltage induced in an inductor or wire loop by a changing current, or the drag force of eddy currents exerted on moving objects in a magnetic field.
Lenz's law may be seen as analogous to Newton's third law in classical mechanics.