What is the difference between ferromagnetic, paramagnetic and diamagnetic substances?
In: Physics
Magnetism is caused by the “direction” or “spin” of electrons that are not bound to each other called “unpaired electrons”
When an object can change the “spin” of its “unpaired electrons” permanently they are called ferromagnetic (Ferro is a word for Iron which is the most famous magnetic metal.)
When an object can temporarily change the spin of its unpaired electrons (and usually does a poor job of it) then it is called Paramagnetic.
Both of the above types (ferro and para) change their electrons to match the direction of a magnetic field.
Substances that are diamagnetic change their spins to be the opposite direction of a magnetic field. Most things that are not Ferro- or para-magnetic are diamagnetic; however most of them are really bad at it so the effects are hard to notice. For instance water is diamagnetic.
(I don’t do a lot of ELI5, so I hope I got the point across)
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