A thought about magnets...

[BaalChatzaf]

Just about everyone plays with magnets, especially little kids. Well, I guess I am still a little kid. There are two games I love to play and share with my young grandchildren. Take about ten of the round refrigerator magnets with a hole in the middle and stack them on a pencil with like pole facing like pole (N to N or S to S) hold down nine of them around the pencil on a flat surface and let go of the tenth (the top magnet). It will fly up the pencil like a bat out of hell. This is a living example of Earnshaws theorem which states that 3 or more magnetic charges cannot be in a mechanically equilibrium state. The magnets will move all over until they clump together unlike pole to pole.

Here is another which I consider fraking magic. Take two bar magnets, the expensive kind with a high Tesla and try to bring the ends together like pole to pole, say N to N. You will really have to work at it and as you do you will fell something that is both rubbery/elastic and smooth at the same time. These are the field lines spreading away from each other. Now there is no question that something real (as real as rain) is pushing at those magnets but it is totally invisible to the eye. I don't know about you, but in spite of knowing Maxwell's equations, a just feel that it is fracking magic....

If you have some fracking magic experiences please share....

Ba'al Chatzaf