I am carrying out a physics project over the next few weeks and am looking at the Gaussian gun. I'm sure most are familiar with it, but if not it is the experiment where you roll a ball bearing into some magnets and the ball bearing on the other side fires out much faster.

I am looking at different variables and how it effects the speed of the fired ball as soon as it leaves the magnet, but to find this I am looking at the speed further away, using a light gate, and then using energy transfers to find the initial speed of the ball.

My dilemma is I dont know how to find the potential energy gained as the ball bearing moves away from the magnet as all the equations I find all use current, but the magnet isn't an electromagnet. I do have access to a hall probe to find the magnetic field strength at various different points but I'm not sure how to convert this to potential energy. So I am asking if there is an equation to link magnetic field strength to magnetic potential energy of a magnet, not an electromagnet, and if so what is it?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I am carrying out a physics project over the next few weeks and am looking at the Gaussian gun. I'm sure most are familiar with it, but if not it is the experiment where you roll a ball bearing into some magnets and the ball bearing on the other side fires out much faster.

I am looking at different variables and how it effects the speed of the fired ball as soon as it leaves the magnet, but to find this I am looking at the speed further away, using a light gate, and then using energy transfers to find the initial speed of the ball.

My dilemma is I dont know how to find the potential energy gained as the ball bearing moves away from the magnet as all the equations I find all use current, but the magnet isn't an electromagnet. I do have access to a hall probe to find the magnetic field strength at various different points but I'm not sure how to convert this to potential energy. So I am asking if there is an equation to link magnetic field strength to magnetic potential energy of a magnet, not an electromagnet, and if so what is it?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.