why do earrings not set off metal detectors at the airport?

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why do earrings not set off metal detectors at the airport?

In: Chemistry

6 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Usually metal detectors don’t go if the metal is small. For instance I have several dental implants in my face that don’t trigger it

Anonymous 0 Comments

Earrings are nonmagnetic. Typically they are made from either gold or sterling silver, not iron-based metals.

This is the same reason that medical devices such as a plate I have in my left arm does not set off metal detectors. The plate in my arm is made of a titanium-based alloy that contains no iron.

Anonymous 0 Comments

metal detectors don’t detect all metal. they detect magnetism, which usually comes from iron in steel. other types of metal are not detected if the sensitivity is set high enough to not go off due to things like pants button, zippers, etc

Anonymous 0 Comments

Metal detectors are basically big magnets looking for something that reacts to the magnetic field

Earrings and other jewelry don’t contain much ferrous (magnetic) metals because ferrous metals rust and are more expensive than the cheap costume jewelry metals

Alternatively expensive earrings contain gold which is not magnetic, cheap diluted gold will be detected by metal detectors

Anonymous 0 Comments

Probably too small amount of metal or it’s not the right kind of metal. Just like magnets only stick to certain metals the metal detector is probably only looking for certain types of metal

Anonymous 0 Comments

It’s about the amount of metal and the sensitivity of the metal detector.

It is not particularly about the type of metal. A metal detector can pick up all types of metal, magnetic and non magnetic. Otherwise it would be kinda flawed for any security use