Why isn’t liquid iron still magnetic? Why can’t we have liquid magnets?
In: Physics
We do have liquid magnets, they’re called ferrofluids.
You can think of the structure of the solid metal as a slide and charge flows naturally in one direction. And if someone melts the slide it no longer can do that. This is an extremely oversimplified explanation. You can think of otherwise non magnetic solids something that doesn’t have passive quality for guiding the flow of water or electrons.
On a chemical/physical level the ions in the metal have to all be aligned so that charge flows in one direction which creates magnetism. If you get the metal you unalign everything, after cooling it would no longer be magnetic.
Latest Answers