Talk:Magnet
From Academic Kids
Would Wikipedia consider a listing for a speculative field such as Magnetic Motors?
See: http://www.pureenergysystems.com/os/MagneticMotors/
- The above question was part of the the exploration by a user who came and left in December 2003 of what Wikipedia isn't, and he seems to be part of a consensus that the answer is "no". --Jerzy 05:50, 2003 Dec 19 (UTC)
The article (Magnet) says
- The end of a freely suspended magnet that starts to point towards the Earth's geographical North Pole, is by definition the magnetic south pole.
And no, i'm not about to point out that the geomagnetic field repeatedly reverses.
It's an even more pedantic issue than that, but i think i recall that what gets labelled N by convention is a north-seeking pole rather than a north pole, from which it follows that the geomagnetic pole in the northern hemisphere is a south pole. Maybe my instructor got befuddled in trying to talk about red end of the compass needle not being a north pole, but the consequences of being wrong about this are so small that 90% of confident sources could be wrong and never realize it. Does someone have a super-reliable source on this? --Jerzy 05:50, 2003 Dec 19 (UTC)
- I just checked this out myself using the following procedure:
1. I set up a small electromagnet (wire around a bolt). 2. I connected a 9 volt battery to the wires. 3. Using the right-hand rule (as defined on wikipedia), I set my hand on the coil such that my fingers were pointed in the from-positive-to-negative-direction. 4. My thumb indicated which side was north (and then I labeled both sides with a sharpie). 5. Then I set a stack of neodymium magnets near the magnet, and let them orient themselves on the table. 6. I labeled the side of the magnets that faced the south side of the electromagnet as north. 7. Then I suspended the magnets with a thread, and let them orient themselves. 8. The north side of the magnets pointed toward geographic north, which means that the geographic north is actually a magnetic south pole. 9. To make sure that the string wasn't twisted (or that something else wasn't forcing the magnets to move), I did everything I could to spin the magnets the other way. I twisted the thread in both directions, I moved the magnets to the middle of a room to account for any interactions with things in the room, and then I tried to point the magnets in the wrong direction. They always re-oriented themselves such that their north pole pointed toward the geographic north.
--Pkeck 15:10, 2005 Jan 14 (EST)
Revamping this page
I started to rework this page with the hopes of making it much clearer and more organized. I feel that magnets are one of those topics that the average person might be interested in, so the content here shouldn't be too in depth. If they want more information, that's what the links are there for. If anyone sees anything that isn't clear or feels that something is missing, please help out. --Pkeck 11:21, 2004 Jan 14 (EST)
New Section on "Explaining Magnetic Attraction"
I'm curious about this new section. First (and most importantly), is this really an accurate way to describe what's going on in a magnet? I've never heard of or thought about it this way...which isn't to say that it's wrong, I've just never heard about it. Can you point to a page with more explanation of this idea of net current flowing around the surface of the magnet? I understand exactly what you mean, I just haven't ever heard of it.
Second, is it really easier to understand why magnets attract or repel one another through this explanation? I'm thinking that if you told the average person to imagine a cylinder of current carrying loops that all had current flowing perpendicular to the long axis of the cylinder and all in the same direction...and then to imagine how the current of adjacent loops negates the flow of current in their neighbors because they are flowing in opposite directions at adjacent points...which means that there will only be a net flow around the surface of the cylinder...I'm thinking the average person would be completely lost.
To be honest, it seems much more complex than simply saying that each atom is a dipole, which makes the whole magnet a dipole, and when opposite poles are near one another, there is attraction (and vice versa). To sum up: is this explanation correct? And is this explanation really more simple? Pkeck 21:11, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
