Discovering Magnets and Their Many Uses
Magnets are very fascinating and interesting elements. They have
been used for so many functions as well as for having fun.
Toying around with magnets can provide entertainment for
children and adults alike. Playing with their incredible
capabilities makes one at awe; it's like magic how they cling to
metal and other magnets as well. Man has been engrossed with
their magnetic capabilities that they soon discovered how to
synthesize these capabilities bringing forth the electromagnet.
By simply coiling wires around into a loop, electric current is
passed through these coils and a magnetic field is created. This
can be very useful when natural magnets or permanent magnets are
not available or too costly. Permanent magnets are those that
don't need outside influences to have a magnetic field.
Magnets are any object, be it a permanent magnet or an
electromagnet, which has a magnetic field. Magnets are attracted
or repelled by other objects. When that object can attract or
repel a magnet it is said that such objects have high
permeability, iron and steel are examples of those. All types of
magnets have two poles, termed bipoles; they are the South Pole
and the North Pole. Even if a magnet is reduced to a molecular
size there would still be the two opposing poles. Similar poles
would repel one another while dissimilar poles would attract
each other and make them stick together.
Magnets have been very useful and have been utilized in many
everyday objects. Many of what we enjoy today uses magnets in
one way or another. For instance, magnets are converted into
magnetic strips where in information can be stored. In the case
of video tapes and audio tapes, the sound and images are stored
on the magnetic coating of the tape. Placing these tapes near a
strong magnet will destroy the data encoded inside it. ATM,
credit and debit cards also employ a strip of magnetic field on
its backside. This magnetic strip contains all the information
needed to access their accounts and financial institutions
that's concerned with the card.
Microphones and speakers also need magnets to make them work.
They utilize a combination of permanent magnet and an
electromagnet. Speakers use the electromagnet to carry the
signals that generate a varying magnetic field that influences
the motion of the magnetic fields that is generated by the
permanent magnet. This recurring force moves the cone which
produces the sound. The microphone has the same concept but is
done in a reverse manner. Common television sets and computer
monitors also use magnets to generate images. Generators and
electric motors also need magnets for proper operation.
Transformers also use them. Then there are the other uses for
magnets that can be quite fun and amusing, such as the
refrigerator magnets.
Magnets though can be stripped off of their magnetic
capabilities. For an electromagnet it is very easy, you only
need to deprive it of its flow of current and the magnetic field
will die down. For permanent magnets there are a couple of ways
to demagnetize it. Rubbing one magnet to another in a random
manner will do the job; some materials though cannot be
demagnetized because they have a high coercive field. Intense
heat also influences the magnetic attributes of a permanent
magnet.