The other day I had a metal spelk in my finger, and couldn’t grab it with my tweezers so had to attach a magnet to it them to pull the spelk out.
The atoms in magnets are angled in the same direction which is what gives it the magnet the magnetic effect, but how does this make other metals magnetic without changing the atomic structure of the metals and why does it only work on some metals and not all?
In: Physics
Making something into a magnet is about alignment of the areas, as you already described.
Transition metals have incomplete d orbitals and each orbital can fit 2 electrons of opposite spin (think of it as an arrow pointing up or down). As a result, the alignment of the electrons determines whether a metal is:
– ferromagnetic (always magnetic, always aligned)
– diamagnetic (all paired, only opposing magnets) or
– paramagnetic (has unpaired electrons which align under a magnet but not otherwise).
Some other variations exist, antiferromagnetism for example. Again, under the influence of a magnetic field, the electrons will align (spin direction).
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