[edit] My 4yo son wants to know 'How do they make magnets'?
So guys, how do they make magnets? Im assuming he's interested in the garden variety, solid stick things to your fridge variety. Thanks for any simple explainations..
Do you want to know how to take raw materials (like a ceramic powder) and turn them into a bar and then magnetize it, or do you just want to know how to take a material that isn't normally a magnet (like scissors) and then give it its own magnetic field? For a four year old, I'd go with the latter, the explanation is simpler and is probably what he's trying to ask. You can do an experiment with him (actually, you'll need to do it with him for safety) to turn something into a magnet: Buy a neodymium magnet (also known as a rare earth magnet). They're available from loads of online retailers and from some stores. Take the magnet and stick it to the metal part of the scissors close to the handle.
Be very careful when you do this--rare earth magnets are extremely strong. Do not let your child play with them. Once you've got it stuck to the scissors, then have your son help you slide the magnet all the way down the scissors and all the way off. Then reattach the magnet close to the handle, have your son help you slide it off, and repeat this over and over. After like 20 or so slides down the magnet, you can use the scissors to pick up a single staple or something small like that. An easy explanation could go something like this: Imagine you're running a comb through hair. As you run the comb through more and more times, all of the hairs get more and more lined up with each other, until all of the hairs are pointing in the same direction. You have to run the comb through the hair, and then take the comb out and go back to where you started, and then run it through again. In the scissors, there are lots of really tiny magnets all pointing in different directions. When you drag the big magnet along the length of the scissors, you're dragging all of the little magnets inside the scissors into rows. After a while, they're all pointed in the same direction (just like the hairs with the comb), so you've made all of the little magnets behave like one big magnet!
Pkeck 05:28, 3 January 2006 (UTC) Yes, that's a valid demonstration, but it's not really "how they make magnets". Unfortunately, the real process is not something you can easily do in your kitchen. Fridge magnets and the like are made from powdered
ceramic material which is either sintered (welded by applying high pressure) into a rigid block, or embedded in flexible plastic. At this point, the object is not yet a magnet. It is then heated above its
Curie temperature, placed inside the magnetic field of a much larger magnet, and cooled. When it is cold, it retains the magnetic field of the larger magnet. This is the adult version. I don't know what sort of words a four-year old boy understands, so I leave the translation up to you! --
Heron 11:00, 18 February 2006 (UTC) A simple version you could try: a big magnet it made up of tiny particles, and when aligned in the same direction, they form a magnet-you can do a demonstration with small bits of paper. have N and S on each end and show how they become aligned form scrambled.
Ursper 20:13, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Far field of a magnet
... but has anyone of you noticed that the magnetic closures of older Mulberries seem to get weaker? When fondling new bags on the shelves, I realized the buttons almost jump on each other while I have to fiddle quite a bit to close mine. Or do they just use stronger magnets now? And a question for the scientists here: is is possible to strengthen the magnetism - e.g. by rubbing a piece of metal or another magnet on them?? I'm useless when it comes to science, but I'm sure you can tell that ...
