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Asked by GG09 to Omur, Maddison, Jimi, Hayley, Chris on 10 Mar 2016.
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Omur Tastan answered on 10 Mar 2016:
Magnets are polarised and they have two poles charged differently. When you put two of them next to each other they don’t like it and they repel each other. Simply, it has to do with their electrical properties! 🙂
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Jimi Wills answered on 10 Mar 2016:
Magnets are made by iron atoms all pointing in the same direction. They make an invisible “field” called a magnetic field. Other types of field include gravitational field and electric field.
The magnetic field acts on other iron atoms… including the ones in another magnet. One end of the magnet is called North and the other South. The North ends of magnets repel each other, and the South ends repel each other, but the North and South attract each other. That’s why toy trains with magnets only work on way round.
The magnetic field has a direction. It points from the North of the magnet to the its South. All the iron atoms in the magnet are pointing North. All the iron atoms outside the magnet want to be pointing South, so when you push the Norths together the atoms are pointing the wrong way and they don’t like it. They try to move the other way.
In fact, they can turn, a little at a time. You can “magnetize” a pin by brushing a magnet along it lots of times… this forces the atoms to all face the same way, which is why it becomes magnetic.
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Hayley Moulding answered on 10 Mar 2016:
Basically, if same end of 2 different magnets meet they repel as all the little atoms in the magnet come together like an army and repel against the other army. If one end of a magnet meets the other end of the different magnet, then they have the same properties and come together. This is like the saying ‘opposites attract’. If two different ends of magnets meet then they attract as they have similar properties.
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Chris Conselice answered on 10 Mar 2016:
No one really knows ‘why’
However, magnets have a positive and negative side. Negative attracts positive and the ‘sames’ repel. It is one of the mysteries of physics what produces this, but there is obviously something deeper going on here.
Comments
Scott commented on :
Sorry to barge in from another zone, but I saw this interesting question and thought I could add something!
A lot of things in physics want to ‘minimize energy’. That means things are naturally lazy! If there’s an easier way of doing something that takes less energy to perform, the universe will try to do it 😎
When the North poles of two magnets face each other, the gap between them fills up with energy because the magnetic fields squash up. Have you ever done that experiment moving a tiny compass around a bar magnet to draw out the magnetic field likes? Or maybe sprinkled some iron filings near a magnet to show the field lines? Well those field lines must never cross each other! If the lines get too close, they increase the energy to stop it. The universe thinks: “Hey! I don’t want all this energy – I’m going to make that gap bigger and open up my field lines! And that’s the push you feel from the magnets 🙂
I hope that explains it a bit. Magnets are some of my favorite things in science 😀
domino90 commented on :
they repel when north and north and south and south and atracct when different poles are together:D:D:D:):):)
widow commented on :
true but if you were the incredible hulk you do that
Sammy commented on :
REMEMBER:
OPPOSITES ATTRACT
bluebestie021 commented on :
how can you make magnets attract and repel