How do the forces of gravity and magnetism differ?

Question

Essentially, how do the two forces differ in the way they attract two objects together? I understand that gravity is a relationship between any two objects with mass, and gravity’s “pull” is visualized as an object creating a depression in space; the more massive the object the deeper the depression. But how would you define magnetic force in terms of the relationship between two objects? Is there a comparable way to visualize magnetic force as in the gravity example?

In: Physics

Answer 1

You can visualize any field. For magnetism, the common way is to plot field lines. Here’s an example of [Earth’s magnetic field](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTCJ8oWbX0Ov-xCR5NJq0AdJIKNMBQB8o11cPMDdpYs_Q&s) on the left side, it’s stable as now, on the right side, it’s in a reversal, which happens every now and then.