Man this magnet lecture on AGDQ is makin me feel some XKCD #2501 kind of way
You must log in to comment.
in reply to @the-doomed-posts-of-muteKi's post:
F**king magnets! How do they work?
Oh, the original post already had the word "magnet" in it.
Magnets are caused by electrons being aligned in certain substances.
Electrical current also causes a magnetic field.
Observe: This magnet can deflect the electron beam of a CRT
The earliest magnets were called lodestone and we don't know how they were formed, but my favorite theory is that a big iron ore rock got struck by lightning and all other magnets had a lineage back to that one (until we developed the electromagnet and started making them artificially)
Magnets moving past a conductor will cause an electrical current in that conductor.
Watch me drop this magnet through this hollow copper tube!
Because magnets cause electric current, and electric current causes magnetism, when you have a magnet moving fast near a conductive surface, you get magnetic braking!
Also, watch me drop the same magnet through this coil of copper wire hooked to two LEDs. See how they light up as it falls! This proves the electric current thing I said earlier.
Also this is how all generators on earth work (except solar panels)
Edit: this comment predated the revision above and can be safely ignored
Pretty much! Adef is talking a fair bit on the history of magnetic materials and how they related to things like medical imaging and old tvs.
I know! So weird to learn there are adults in the world who don't know these basic facts I had learned by the end of third grade...