Thread: How can a light bulb work without completing the circuit?

My professor used an RF generator to create (i'm assuming) an AC current through a wire connected to a light bulb connected to a wire which is connected to nothing! So the circuit isn't completed. Some people have told me that it might have to do with a changing magnetic field in the RF generator that causes an induced current able to flow back and forth inside the one wire. Is this correct?

Yes, indeed that is why it works. Faraday's law of induction.

Essentially, coils of the light bulb behave as the secondary coil of a transformer, capturing a changing magnetic field to induce a voltage.

I advvice to search in yahoo web or wikipedia