So I was wondering about if you hold up a magnet using a retort stand(or anything actually) and let a paper clip or something get attracted. But what is the energy being converted into the KE and GPE for the paper clip to move up? I asked my teacher but he said answering me will make me confused but I’m still too curious.
In: Physics
There’s an electromagnetic potential energy between two magnets which are separated, this is reduced by bringing the magnets closer together – in a similar way to the gravitational potential energy between a mass and the earth (another mass).
If the electromagnetic potential energy is strong enough, you can use one magnet to lift another (assuming the higher one is fixed on a crane or something), because it will be able to turn that electromagnetic energy into kinetic and then gravitational potential energy (with a little lost as heat)
Quite simply potential energies are created by a force ‘doing work”. So this is any force acting over a distance.
Gravitational is very common and easy to demonstrate. Gravity exerts its influence as the object falls down, and also must be “faught” when you lift objects up.
So magnets exert a force, and are applied as objects are brought closer or further. So they can have a magnetic potential energy just like gravitational.
Springs can also work this way… So there is a spring potential energy (usually called elastic potential energy).
Following the same pattern we also have electrical potential energy (which at the small scale is chemical potential energy) and nuclear potential energy.
So it can lead you down a rabbit hole if you focus on all the different types. But the key tying them all together is they are a force exerted over a distance.
When the magnet is created, energy is put in to separate the poles. Magnetic fields prefer to pass through magnetic substances like the steel paperclip vs. the air. The magnetic field in a magnet is strongest at the poles, so if the paperclip is there, the magnet will have the least energy possible in this system. It is that energy which is converted to GPE.
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