I never really took these kinds of physics classes in high school. What science classes I did have were like standard biology/geology classes, or specifically related to other classes that also didn’t explain this.
It’s now years later, I’m currently trying to understand electronics today, and have project ideas that I want to do but just don’t know where to even begin. Ive been reading textbooks and watching videos that have helped me to better understand several concepts on a fundamental level. I get that current induces a magnetic field, and vice versa. But…
What I still don’t understand is how and why that magnetic field exists in the first place. How is it possible that an item’s atoms and charges and electrons and stuff are affected at all by something else, a completely separate item, that isn’t even touching it? How is it that a magnet can physically repel other magnets/materials? How can magnetic fields exist at all, why is it a real thing? It might as well be magic to me, and trying to think about it or find answers makes me think everybody else is just handwaving it away like “it just does, don’t try to understand it”.
Ive tried to look at previous posts and questions, but I don’t see this specific question being asked or answered.
In: Physics
i think its one of the fundamental forces and those are kind of not to explain, they are just there and everything else is based on them so everything else can be explained with them
There are a large number of forces that don’t require touching. For instance gravity. Objects get pulled towards each other based on their mass. There is another force called the electric force. Objects with a negative charge repel other objects with a negative charge and attract objects with a positive charge.
The reason for this has to do with subatomic particles. There are things called electrons which are the negative particle. They repel other electrons and attract the positive particle protons. Just like gravity they don’t need to touch for this to be the case. They experience a force away from each other that gets weaker the farther apart they get. So, objects with more negative charge than positive charge experience have an overall negative charge.
Magnetism is when you move a charged object in reference to other charged objects. When that happens the object experiences a different force perpendicular to the the direction of it’s movement and the force of the attraction or repulsion.
A magnet is an object where all the electrons are moving ways that they all create a magnetic force in the same direction. They build on one another and create a large magnetic force.
That’s a question I’ve had for some time now. I find it intreaguing that it’s even possible.
Can I stay for answers?
For some context before we get to magnetism, we note that *electrostatic* cling means we walk out of the house in the morning with socks stuck on the back of our sweater. So everyday phenomena show how opposite *electric charges* will attract based on *electrostatic* forces. That isn’t magnetism, but ….
Next, toying around with magnets and wires will show that magnetism and electric phenomena arise from one fundamental force of nature, called “electromagnetism.”
So when we say “magnetism” we’re really saying that the “magnetic” aspect of the electromagnetic force is the aspect that’s highlighted, in that situation.
Any *moving* electric charge will have an associated magnetic field. That magnetic field affects the forces experienced by all other electric charges.
Separately, the individual particles of matter have an *intrinsic* property referred to as “spin”. It doesn’t mean the particles are actually spinning — it’s an intrinsic property, which shows up in the math of relativistic quantum mechanics. Knowing that such an intrinsic property exists in electrons — that’s a key puzzle piece for a mental picture, to explain a refrigerator magnet. It’s all about how the fundamental forces combine to achieve a net effect.
> or find answers makes me think everybody else is just handwaving it away like “it just does, don’t try to understand it”.
The problem is that based on our current understanding of physics, magnetism is one of the fundamental forces. That means it’s at the bottom, so asking “why” it exists is problematic, since there’s not some other force or thing or whatever that leads to the magnetic force existing.
Unless there’s some scientific breakthrough that shows the magnetic field comes from some other phenomena, then it’s simply not answerable. It’s one of the basic building blocks of the universe.
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