Me and a few friends started to argue about magnets. Of course we know there are the laws of thermodynamics that basically say you cannot generate energy from nothing.
But what of magnets? If i stick a magnet to the fridge it must be generating at least enough energy to not fall down due to gravity.
Where is this energy coming from? Should it not like run out of energy sometime?
In: 0
It’s not generating any energy.
Just like if you hang a coat on the coat hanger, it isn’t generating energy by just sitting there.
You can think of magnets like of gravity: something in a magnetic field wants to move as close as possible to the magnetic pole.
Just like something in a gravitational field wants to get as close as possible to the center of that field.
And once two magnets are touching, (or as close as they can get) they are in the lowest energy state they can be, and it actually takes energy to seperate them again, and releases energy when they get closer. That’s why it’s hard to move apart magnets, but easy to move them closer.
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