While I know basic info about magnetic fields(opposites attract, and so on) but how exactly do magnets do what they do? And what are “teslas”?
In: Physics
Imagine that everywhere in space is filled with little arrows that can be of different sizes and point in different directions. [This page has cool pictures demonstrating this.](https://mathinsight.org/vector_field_overview) All those little arrows are a field. Throughout all of space are different types of these fields. The magnetic field is one of these.
When you have something that’s magnetic, it means that it has the property of affecting the field. It’s affecting the size and direction of all those little arrows. [Example image.](http://www.evsc.net/v8/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/dipole_field02-300×228.gif) Any other object inside of a magnetic field will then feel a force on it because of its interaction with that field.
For physical magnets, like the kind you stick to your fridge, they get their magnetism by essentially being made up of a bunch of tiny magnets. The particles that make up atoms have a natural magnetic field due to a fundamental property they have, called “spin”. This makes them like tiny magnets. If all these tiny magnets are pointing in random directions, they cancel each other out overall. On the other hand, if they arrange themselves to point in the same direction, the magnetic fields don’t cancel out. Instead they add together and the whole object becomes a magnet.
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