MAGNETS Screenshot 2021-09-27 103148

Types of magnets

Ring magnet

Horseshoe magnet

Button/Disc magnet

Bar magnet

Cylindrical magnet

Strengths of magnets

The amount of pins or coins it holds.

Bar magnets: 4-5 pins

Button magnet/disc magnet: 2 pins

Cylindrical magnet: 3 pins

Ring magnet: 2 pins

Horseshoe magnet: 3 pins

Properties of a magnet

Opposite poles of two magnets attract.

Like poles of two magnets repel.

Poles always exist in pairs. They cannot be separated.

If a magnet is suspended freely in mid-air with a thread, it will align it's self in the north-south direction.

Magnets have two poles the north (N) pole and the south (S) pole.

Magnets attract only nickel, cobalt and iron. Magnets also attract electromagnets and magnets that have an alloy.

Fun Facts

Legend says that a shepherd from Greece named Magnes was the first to discover these magnetic rocks when the iron tip of his staff was pulled towards a stone as he passed over it. Subsequently, these rocks were named lodestones, and went on to be called magnetite, possibly after Magnes himself.

In the past, lodestone was used by sailors as an aid to navigation. They had discovered that when they suspended a piece of magnetite by a thread, it always pointed in a north-south direction. This is now called the compass.

The Earth is like one big bar magnet. It has a magnetic north and a magnetic south, which is what the needle on a compass points to. The geographical north pole is the magnetic south pole and the geographical south pole is a magnetic north pole.


Let me tell you why, do you remember one property of the magnet the one which is that opposite poles of two magnets attract so that means that the magnetic north pole and the geographical south pole attract and vice versa... Now do you understand?