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Selects: How Magnets Work · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey there, it's Josh, and for this week's select, I've
0:03
Speaker 1: chosen an ancient episode from April of twenty thirteen, more
0:07
Speaker 1: than ten years ago. Can you believe it? And if
0:09
Speaker 1: you don't understand how magnets work after listening to this one,
0:13
Speaker 1: well then we didn't do a very good job of
0:15
Speaker 1: explaining it. Check it out and see what you think.
0:22
Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
0:32
Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with
0:35
Speaker 1: guess who tell him? Tell him how? I'm with Chuck. Oh, Chuck,
0:40
Speaker 1: I'm with Chuck, and Jerry's in the room as well,
0:43
Speaker 1: And since the three of us are together in this room,
0:46
Speaker 1: we have tell the Stuff should Know Chuck, Stuff you
0:48
Speaker 1: should Know. That's right the podcast. I am so excited
0:54
Speaker 1: about this podcast. I know you would be, so much
0:56
Speaker 1: so that I'm worried about it because, as you know,
0:58
Speaker 1: and anybody who even likes occasionally listens to the Stuff
1:01
Speaker 1: you Should Know is aware of the more excited I
1:04
Speaker 1: get about a topic, the poorer job I do at
1:08
Speaker 1: explaining it. Yeah, see you already did it. I should
1:12
Speaker 1: have said, the poorer the job I do. Yeah, it's true.
1:16
Speaker 1: So I'm just gonna try to remain calm, okay, because
1:20
Speaker 1: all we're talking about is magnets after all, you know.
1:22
Speaker 2: And that's the way I feel. We usually balance each
1:25
Speaker 2: other out nicely like that.
1:26
Speaker 1: But you don't think that there is some a certain
1:29
Speaker 1: cachet to walking around understanding how a magnet works. Do
1:35
Speaker 1: you realize what percentage of the population you're a member
1:38
Speaker 1: of for knowing that maybe, maybe, and this is a guess,
1:42
Speaker 1: like point zero zero two nine percent of the human population.
1:47
Speaker 2: Knows how magnets work.
1:49
Speaker 1: I don't know anybody else until we selected this and
1:52
Speaker 1: started reading it besides Tracy Wilson, who knew how magnets work.
1:56
Speaker 2: I think you are underestimating the curiosity of the general
1:59
Speaker 2: public for people to look up this stuff.
2:01
Speaker 1: On their own, all right, I would like to hear
2:04
Speaker 1: from people if you already knew how magnets is.
2:05
Speaker 2: Act like, if we don't tell people this and they're
2:07
Speaker 2: just dumb dummies walking around.
2:10
Speaker 1: I don't think that that's not at all what I think.
2:13
Speaker 1: But I get.
2:15
Speaker 2: This, and I think that will prove that people know
2:18
Speaker 2: this and more.
2:19
Speaker 1: Okay, if you're if you're a physicist whose specialty is the.
2:24
Speaker 2: Electromagnetic cracking their knuckles right now and listening to.
2:27
Speaker 1: It right then. Yes, we're gonna mess things up, it's true.
2:30
Speaker 1: But we have a general, good, well, i'd say, fairly
2:34
Speaker 1: detailed idea of why magnets exist. That's right, and we're
2:39
Speaker 1: gonna explain that to everybody. It's all because but nice,
2:42
Speaker 1: not in any way, shape or form in a condescending manner. No, no, no, no,
2:47
Speaker 1: because all we do is research thems. Right, It's not
2:50
Speaker 1: like we're making magnets here. No, we're just talking about them.
2:54
Speaker 2: You know, they discovered these in Magnesia in Greece. Did
2:57
Speaker 2: you know that what magnets like? Natural magnets? Yeah, like loadstone, Yeah,
3:04
Speaker 2: in Magnesia increase.
3:06
Speaker 1: Is that really a place, yeah, Magnesia. Absolutely, you're not
3:10
Speaker 1: pulling my leg, nope, okay, but it was loadstone, a
3:14
Speaker 1: type of magnetite. Yeah, it was magnetite, because that's the
3:17
Speaker 1: strongest naturally occurring magnet, right, Like you can attract a
3:22
Speaker 1: paper clip just with this rock.
3:24
Speaker 2: That's pretty cool.
3:24
Speaker 1: Yeah. It is even cooler though, are the ones that
3:27
Speaker 1: humans have conquered and mastered and own. That's right, because
3:31
Speaker 1: all the magnets you come in contact with on a
3:34
Speaker 1: daily basis, maybe a weekly basis have been manipulated by humanity.
3:39
Speaker 2: See, I never come into contact with magnets.
3:42
Speaker 1: You know something, it's hard to find a decent magnet
3:45
Speaker 1: these days in an average store, Like you have to
3:47
Speaker 1: like mail off for them.
3:49
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah. And I don't have refrigerator magnets because
3:53
Speaker 2: you know, the stainless steel fridges, you can't put a
3:56
Speaker 2: magnet on them.
3:57
Speaker 1: This is so weird.
3:58
Speaker 2: You can put it on the side. So we have
4:00
Speaker 2: a few, you know, you get magnets over the court
4:02
Speaker 2: of your life, whether it's like the pizza delivery guy
4:05
Speaker 2: has a like we have one in the shape of
4:07
Speaker 2: a pizza slice with their number on it, you do,
4:10
Speaker 2: and that's on the side, and like our vet, like
4:13
Speaker 2: we have a vet magnet.
4:14
Speaker 1: In this shape of a pizza slice.
4:17
Speaker 2: And then like in a random random people have given
4:22
Speaker 2: me magnets here and there, which I'll throw up there
4:24
Speaker 2: on the side.
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Speaker 1: That's good. Those are nice mementos. You meant one of
4:27
Speaker 1: times you did. Yeah, that's nice. That's great, Chuck.
4:32
Speaker 2: So anyway, I don't have a lot of magnets or
4:33
Speaker 2: experience with magnets, but I understand them now.
4:36
Speaker 1: Now that you say that. I realized that I have
4:39
Speaker 1: more experience than I realized with magnets, because we really
4:42
Speaker 1: you mean, and I do have a pretty good magnet collection.
4:44
Speaker 1: Well there you go on our fridge. But yeah, it is.
4:49
Speaker 1: It always struck me as weird that like stainless steel,
4:52
Speaker 1: wouldn't you couldn't put a magnet on that. Yeah, now
4:55
Speaker 1: I understand why stainless steel is not a ferross metal.
4:59
Speaker 2: That's right.
5:00
Speaker 1: You have to have a fairist metal, like something say iron, nickel, cobalt, aluminum,
5:06
Speaker 1: even Oh really, I think so, because there's a type
5:10
Speaker 1: of magnet called the al Niko magnet, and that's aluminum, nickel,
5:15
Speaker 1: cobalt alloy.
5:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you've got a really good guitar amp, you
5:19
Speaker 2: might have an al Nico speaker, is that right? Yeah?
5:22
Speaker 2: They're pricey. Oh yeah, I can imagine, like you can
5:26
Speaker 2: buy the speaker separately and like switch it out in
5:28
Speaker 2: your amp to make your amp some better, which I
5:30
Speaker 2: have been meaning to do for years. But they're just
5:32
Speaker 2: kind of pricey. It's like four hundred bucks just for
5:34
Speaker 2: the speaker.
5:34
Speaker 1: But how's this sound?
5:36
Speaker 2: Well, I'm told it's great. But music guys here much
5:41
Speaker 2: more than I do, like real, real music guys. They're like,
5:44
Speaker 2: can't you hear the difference? And I'll be like, eh,
5:46
Speaker 2: sort of.
5:47
Speaker 1: Are these music guys also al Nico speaker salesman?
5:50
Speaker 2: Yeah?
5:50
Speaker 1: Probably so all right, so let's get so, this is
5:53
Speaker 1: what I like about this article. It goes like basic
5:56
Speaker 1: too specific. Yes, and you can start with the basics
5:59
Speaker 1: about my magnets. They attract specific metals, as we said,
6:02
Speaker 1: typically fairest metals. Yes, they have a north and south pole.
6:07
Speaker 1: All magnets do. There's no north and east polled magnet.
6:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the Earth is the biggest magnet of all.
6:12
Speaker 1: I guess it is, at least on Earth. Opposite poles
6:16
Speaker 1: attract one another like poles repel one another. They hate
6:20
Speaker 1: each other.
6:21
Speaker 2: That's right.
6:22
Speaker 1: Magnetic and electrical fields are related. And we're going to
6:25
Speaker 1: explain why I'm so excited in magnetism. I think I
6:30
Speaker 1: said electromagnetism earlier. So you can put your email away
6:33
Speaker 1: because I'm correct in myself. Yes, is one of the
6:36
Speaker 1: four fundamental forces of the universe. Right, that's right, with
6:39
Speaker 1: gravity and the strong and weak nuclear forces. That's right,
6:44
Speaker 1: that's magnets.
6:44
Speaker 2: That's a great intro magnets. The object itself, or a
6:49
Speaker 2: magnet is an object in itself that produces a magnetic
6:52
Speaker 2: field and it's going to attract like you said, ferris metals, yep.
6:56
Speaker 2: And there can be permanent magnets aka hard magnets, and
7:02
Speaker 2: they always have a magnetic field going. And then you
7:05
Speaker 2: have the temporary magnets aka soft magnets, and they just
7:10
Speaker 2: produce a magnetic field when they're in the presence of
7:13
Speaker 2: or when they're in the presence of a magnetic field
7:16
Speaker 2: and only for a short time and then for a
7:17
Speaker 2: little bit thereafter, right like once it's gone once.
7:20
Speaker 1: Yeah. And then electromagnets, when you apply an electrical current
7:23
Speaker 1: to some magnets, they become magnetic.
7:25
Speaker 2: That's right.
7:26
Speaker 1: And if you have a doorbell, you probably have an
7:28
Speaker 1: electromagnet in your house. Yeah, the doorbell, Yeah, I looked
7:31
Speaker 1: it up. It's it's more complicated than you would think.
7:34
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I don't know.
7:35
Speaker 1: It's like a it's like a Rube Goldberg esque contraption
7:40
Speaker 1: that that is apparently pretty standard and uses electromagnets. It's
7:43
Speaker 1: neat and actually, if you're interested in that, there's an
7:45
Speaker 1: article how doorbells work on howstuff Works dot com.
7:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, isn't it weird that a door or maybe it's
7:51
Speaker 2: just me as a misin throat, but like the sound
7:53
Speaker 2: of a doorbell now is not like oh, I wonder
7:55
Speaker 2: who's here? It's a crap who's here? Right, because no
7:58
Speaker 2: one just drops by.
7:59
Speaker 1: Anymore, either that or like they know yeah yeah, yeah,
8:03
Speaker 1: so chuck. The magnets that you typically have, like your
8:08
Speaker 1: pizza Pizza boy magnet or like the circle ones are
8:12
Speaker 1: probably the best example. Just a ring, that magnetic ring
8:16
Speaker 1: that you see, yeah and grew up with. Those are
8:19
Speaker 1: a specific type and they're called ceramic magnets, and they're
8:23
Speaker 1: probably the weakest magnets commercially available, except for the pizza
8:27
Speaker 1: slice ones, right, because that's almost like a sticker.
8:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's connected to or it's got a
8:36
Speaker 2: you know, a topper on it, right with printing, Yeah,
8:39
Speaker 2: a topper.
8:40
Speaker 1: That's that's the find the top for the pizza slice tougher.
8:45
Speaker 1: But with a ceramic magnet, it's it's magnetic material mixed
8:49
Speaker 1: with ceramics and it kind of cuts it and it
8:54
Speaker 1: makes it a little weak.
8:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, but good enough to stick on a fridge, which
8:57
Speaker 2: is all you're looking for.
8:58
Speaker 1: And it's cheap very cheap.
9:00
Speaker 2: You already mentioned the Alnico magnets, which are more expensive
9:04
Speaker 2: and like you said, aluminum, nickel, and cobalt, and they
9:07
Speaker 2: are stronger than ceramic obviously, but not as strong as
9:10
Speaker 2: the ones we're about to talk about, like neodymium magnets, yeah,
9:16
Speaker 2: or Samarium Samarium.
9:21
Speaker 1: You've gotta be kidding Samarium, Okay, Samarium. Both of those
9:27
Speaker 1: magnets incorporate rare earth metals, yeah, which are extremely magnetic,
9:32
Speaker 1: or when combining an alloy can be magnetic.
9:36
Speaker 2: That's true. And now they even have and this is
9:38
Speaker 2: something I never knew, They have plastic magnets called magnetic polymers,
9:43
Speaker 2: and I guess those are used in just very certain
9:45
Speaker 2: applications like cold tempature applications.
9:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, or maybe that's what's on your pizza slice magnet or.
9:53
Speaker 2: It says they pick up very only very lightweight things
9:56
Speaker 2: like iron filling. So I wonder if that's what you
9:58
Speaker 2: use with like your You remember the little little toy
10:03
Speaker 2: kids thing where you could had a guy's face and
10:06
Speaker 2: had the little iron fillings and you can move it
10:08
Speaker 2: around and make a beard or a mustache or whatever.
10:11
Speaker 1: Sure, I bet that's what that is. What was that
10:13
Speaker 1: called I don't know, old timey toy number two seventy three.
10:17
Speaker 2: Not a etch a sketch, not a hugo, something like that.
10:19
Speaker 1: And why was it that anybody who had a beard
10:22
Speaker 1: from the nineteen forties to the nineteen sixties, any child's
10:25
Speaker 1: toy was like the most disturbing looking creature you could
10:30
Speaker 1: come up with. You think, Oh, yeah, have you ever
10:33
Speaker 1: heard of rushed in dolls? No, they had. They were
10:36
Speaker 1: this very successful toy company, and they came out with
10:38
Speaker 1: a line of hobo dolls that were like the scariest
10:41
Speaker 1: things you've ever seen in your life. Of course, like
10:43
Speaker 1: they were meant to damage children obviously.
10:46
Speaker 2: Oh, keep them from hopping trains, probably, I guess you know, yeah,
10:50
Speaker 2: play with it at home out on the road, yeah, if.
10:53
Speaker 1: You hop trains.
10:54
Speaker 2: Interesting.
11:14
Speaker 1: Let's see, Oh, I made a blog post actually called
11:16
Speaker 1: twenty seven of the most unintentionally terrifying dolls You've ever
11:19
Speaker 1: seen or ever created.
11:20
Speaker 2: That's like almost every doll in my opinion.
11:22
Speaker 1: You should see the slide to It's pretty good.
11:24
Speaker 2: I'll check it out.
11:25
Speaker 1: Okay, So let's talk about making magnets chuckers.
11:27
Speaker 2: All right, Well, you talked about loadstone form of magnetite,
11:31
Speaker 2: and that is, you know, the natural, strongest natural magnet, right.
11:35
Speaker 1: You don't have to do anything no to it. So
11:39
Speaker 1: I guess the discovery of loadstone and the fact that
11:41
Speaker 1: it attracted metals made people start to tinker around with it.
11:44
Speaker 1: And I guess around the twelfth century people figured out
11:48
Speaker 1: that if you took a little iron pin and you
11:51
Speaker 1: took some loadstone and you petted it in the same direction,
11:55
Speaker 1: preferably in a north northern direction, like, you could magnetize
12:00
Speaker 1: that iron filling and if you suspended it in something
12:03
Speaker 1: like water in a leaf. For anyone who's seen that
12:06
Speaker 1: movie with Alec Baldwin and Anthony Hopkins, The Edge, Oh yeah, yeah,
12:14
Speaker 1: they magnetize like a needle and put it in like
12:17
Speaker 1: a water filled leaf in it they figure out which
12:19
Speaker 1: way's north through.
12:20
Speaker 2: I knew I had seen that before.
12:21
Speaker 1: So that's basically magnetizing a pin using loadstone. That's how
12:27
Speaker 1: the earliest compasses were made.
12:29
Speaker 2: Very cool. Yeah, So what's going on here, and this
12:31
Speaker 2: is sort of the basis, and we'll break it down
12:34
Speaker 2: to it, like you said, a more molecular level. Yeah,
12:37
Speaker 2: but what's going on here is something known as a
12:39
Speaker 2: region called a magnetic domain, and it is actually part
12:43
Speaker 2: of the physical structure of any ferromagnetic material. So we're
12:48
Speaker 2: talking again iron, cobalt, and nickel largely, and each one
12:53
Speaker 2: is like its own tiny little magnet right there. It's
12:56
Speaker 2: got its own little north pole, its own little south pole,
12:59
Speaker 2: and they if it's unmagnetized, then this stuff is just
13:04
Speaker 2: going to be random and pointing in all different directions.
13:06
Speaker 1: Right. The domain has its own north and south pole,
13:09
Speaker 1: but it's not necessarily aligned with the north and south
13:12
Speaker 1: pole on Earth.
13:12
Speaker 2: Right, they're just kind of a skew if it's magnetized,
13:15
Speaker 2: all pointing in the same direction.
13:17
Speaker 1: Right, Yes, that's pretty much all you have to do
13:20
Speaker 1: is figure out how to get all of those magnetic
13:24
Speaker 1: domains to align in the same north south line.
13:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, because if they're not, they're just canceling each other
13:29
Speaker 2: out exactly.
13:31
Speaker 1: So the more domains that you have pointing in the
13:34
Speaker 1: same direction, the more powerful magnet you have. And in
13:40
Speaker 1: each of these little domains you can just kind of
13:42
Speaker 1: I almost see it as like a little pocket in
13:44
Speaker 1: the molecular makeup of this, Like an iron the north
13:51
Speaker 1: pole of one domain flows into the south pole of
13:53
Speaker 1: the domain in front of it.
13:54
Speaker 2: That's right.
13:55
Speaker 1: If they're all aligned and you add a bunch of
13:57
Speaker 1: these up, they produce one large field for the magnet
14:01
Speaker 1: as a whole.
14:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, yeah, which explains why if you you know,
14:05
Speaker 2: if you do the old trick in elementary school, where
14:06
Speaker 2: you bring one magnet close to the other one, it'll
14:09
Speaker 2: either repel it or you know, snap it together like
14:12
Speaker 2: one larger magnet.
14:13
Speaker 1: Right, because the force, this magnetic force is going into
14:17
Speaker 1: out of the north pole of the magnet and into
14:20
Speaker 1: the south pole of the magnet in front of it.
14:22
Speaker 2: Something very dirty about that, it is, right.
14:26
Speaker 1: Or if you take the north pole of one magnet
14:28
Speaker 1: north pole of another magnet, you put them together, they
14:30
Speaker 1: repello another because their magnetic forces are flowing in opposite
14:33
Speaker 1: directions and pushing one another apart. Which is kind of
14:37
Speaker 1: funny because this is how magnets work. But it bears
14:40
Speaker 1: such a striking resemblance to like something they would have
14:42
Speaker 1: come up with in the fifteenth century, like yeah, the
14:45
Speaker 1: force flowing out.
14:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, this invisible force, right, Yeah.
14:49
Speaker 1: It's witchery. And this is why magnets won't be brought together.
14:52
Speaker 2: Like people would come and drag us out of here
14:54
Speaker 2: and toss us in a lake to see if we
14:56
Speaker 2: float a perfect So we could stop there and you
14:59
Speaker 2: would have a pretty good idea of things, but we won't. No,
15:03
Speaker 2: we'll continue on.
15:04
Speaker 1: Okay, we'll go a little a little more in detail.
15:07
Speaker 2: Huh, that's right. If you want to make a magnet,
15:09
Speaker 2: you have to get all these magnetic domains flowing in
15:13
Speaker 2: the same direction, just like we were talking about earlier.
15:16
Speaker 2: When you rub the needle on the magnet, you expose
15:19
Speaker 2: it to this magnetic field and we're get in these
15:21
Speaker 2: suckers to align in the same way and then boom.
15:24
Speaker 2: That is one way that you can get a.
15:26
Speaker 1: Magnet, right, and there's different ways of doing this. You
15:29
Speaker 1: place it in a magnetic field in the north south direction.
15:32
Speaker 1: You can hold it in north south direction and hit
15:34
Speaker 1: it at the hammer.
15:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's crazy.
15:36
Speaker 1: It is a little crazy, like you're physically jarring these
15:39
Speaker 1: domains into alignments. They're like, huh, yeah, okay, I'll point
15:42
Speaker 1: this way then, or you can pass an electrical current
15:46
Speaker 1: through it.
15:46
Speaker 2: That's kind of a cheat.
15:47
Speaker 1: And they think that this is where loadstone came from.
15:50
Speaker 1: Either it was when this rock formed, the magnetite formed
15:58
Speaker 1: from a lava. It was aligned with the north south
16:02
Speaker 1: pole of the Earth, so it became magnetized. Yeah, or
16:06
Speaker 1: it was struck by lightning, so an electrical current path
16:08
Speaker 1: through it, that'd be pretty cool, and it became magnetized
16:11
Speaker 1: as a result, And that seems likely, right, But today
16:14
Speaker 1: the most common method of making magnets is to place
16:17
Speaker 1: them in a very strong magnetic field. Yeah and baa
16:20
Speaker 1: boom bata bing their domains start to wind up.
16:23
Speaker 2: But yeah, there's gonna be a little delay though. Yeah,
16:25
Speaker 2: and I saw this like on a on a YouTube
16:28
Speaker 2: video of this guy. There's a really good one. I
16:30
Speaker 2: can't remember what it was called where the guy broke
16:31
Speaker 2: it down. I always whenever it's stuff I don't understand,
16:34
Speaker 2: I always type kid science and then then I look
16:38
Speaker 2: and see what videos are availab Yeah, yeah, no, it's good.
16:40
Speaker 2: It really helps out. Yeah, but there will be a
16:43
Speaker 2: delay and called hysteresis or hysteresis, and uh, that's basically
16:49
Speaker 2: just the time it takes for these for the field
16:52
Speaker 2: to change direction and I'll align itself.
16:55
Speaker 1: Right, because when you get these domains going, the ones
16:58
Speaker 1: that aren't already lined up on a north south pole, Yeah,
17:03
Speaker 1: they just rotate around and do a little crazy spinning
17:06
Speaker 1: until they land on it, right, And the ones that
17:09
Speaker 1: are already aligned north south are they grow.
17:13
Speaker 2: Bigger, Yeah, become more robust, I guess.
17:15
Speaker 1: Yeah. And as a result other ones, the walls between
17:17
Speaker 1: smaller domains will shrink, and so you have large north
17:24
Speaker 1: south domains and then even the smaller ones are now
17:27
Speaker 1: probably polarized along that north south line. Yeah, and you
17:31
Speaker 1: have just created a magnet.
17:33
Speaker 2: Yeah. And here's what I think was one of the
17:34
Speaker 2: really cooler aspects of this is how strong your magnet
17:38
Speaker 2: is depends on how hard it was to get these
17:41
Speaker 2: domains to move in that direction.
17:43
Speaker 1: Yeah.
17:43
Speaker 2: And the harder it is, the longer it will stay magnetized,
17:48
Speaker 2: which sort of makes sense. It's almost like that it
17:51
Speaker 2: was so stubborn to get going, but then once you
17:53
Speaker 2: got it going in the right direction, it was then
17:55
Speaker 2: stubborn undoing it at that action.
17:58
Speaker 1: Right, which kind of makes you wonder like if over
18:02
Speaker 1: enough of a time span, well, any magnetized material eventually
18:06
Speaker 1: lose its magnetism, oh, just left alone. Yeah, huh, that's
18:10
Speaker 1: a good question. Uh. There are things you can do
18:12
Speaker 1: to demagnetize things. You could take a magnet and put
18:15
Speaker 1: it in a magnetic field that's polarized the opposite direction.
18:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's kind of mean.
18:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can. You can boil it alive, which is
18:24
Speaker 1: also very mean, and heat it to the point where
18:27
Speaker 1: it loses its magnetism.
18:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, the curey point. The guy in the video tested this.
18:31
Speaker 2: He had a paper clip on a string tied to
18:35
Speaker 2: the table and then the magnet was like a foot off,
18:37
Speaker 2: so it was just like throwing and then he took
18:40
Speaker 2: a is it a Jerry Lewis? Then he said, Dan,
18:45
Speaker 2: bring me a lighter, and he got a lighter and
18:49
Speaker 2: heat it up the paper clip and then you see
18:51
Speaker 2: it start to shake and then eventually it just poop fell.
18:55
Speaker 1: That is a weird story.
18:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, he demagnetized it. Yeah he did using the cure.
19:02
Speaker 1: So okay, again we could stop here. I think everybody
19:05
Speaker 1: understands how magnets work, right, Like, there's little magnetic domains
19:09
Speaker 1: that are in all kinds of crazy directions and then
19:13
Speaker 1: when you expose them to a magnetic field, they line
19:15
Speaker 1: up together and they produce their own magnetic field around
19:19
Speaker 1: that magnetic material and then there you go. It flows
19:22
Speaker 1: out of the north and into the south. Magnets, right, I.
19:26
Speaker 2: Would like to see a survey. Wish you could take
19:29
Speaker 2: an instant survey of people that you know, half of
19:31
Speaker 2: them are going go, go go, and half of them
19:34
Speaker 2: are like, I'm good. Right, that's all I need to
19:37
Speaker 2: know about magnets, right, you.
19:39
Speaker 1: Know, I think our listeners are pretty curious folk.
19:43
Speaker 2: Okay, so we're going deeper in Tracy Wilson, who are
19:47
Speaker 2: site manager here of stuff you miss in history class? Now, Yeah,
19:51
Speaker 2: she wrote this one, and she's so thorough. She has
19:54
Speaker 2: a very nice little pun in this section called shipping magnets.
19:59
Speaker 2: Get it, oh, shipping magnet.
20:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, I got it now, I didn't notice that before.
20:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a pun. What she's talking about in this
20:06
Speaker 2: section though, is interesting in that very large magnets present
20:10
Speaker 2: a lot of problems because they're super strong and you
20:13
Speaker 2: can't just throw it on a truck and you know,
20:16
Speaker 2: drive it across country. You know, it'll disrupt everything. Yeah,
20:18
Speaker 2: so very specific precautions have to be taken when delivering
20:24
Speaker 2: large magnets use for certain like industrial applications, one of
20:29
Speaker 2: which is they have machines that because it'll pick up
20:33
Speaker 2: all this ferrost material along the way, right, they have
20:35
Speaker 2: machines when they get there to remove all that stuff.
20:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean imagine if you're shipping it in
20:40
Speaker 1: like a truck, and the truck is made of or
20:43
Speaker 1: has some sort of iron alloy in it, Yeah, and
20:46
Speaker 1: you have a huge industrial magnet. How are you going
20:48
Speaker 1: to get that off of the truck? You're not exactly,
20:51
Speaker 1: So they magnetize these materials on site typically, right, Oh,
20:55
Speaker 1: is that what they do? That's what I understand, or
20:57
Speaker 1: else they just rely almost exclusively on electromagnets, which become
21:01
Speaker 1: magnetic when you pass it current through.
21:02
Speaker 2: Other you can say, manpower, right, give me those ten.
21:06
Speaker 1: American ingenuity, that's how you do it.
21:09
Speaker 2: It stuck, sir. Right, Well, speaking of sticking, we're going
21:13
Speaker 2: to break it down to the electrons, which.
21:16
Speaker 1: The atomic level, this is.
21:17
Speaker 2: Bound to happen, yeah, because that's really where it all starts.
21:19
Speaker 1: Well, I was just saying, like electromagnets, they become magnetic
21:23
Speaker 1: when you pass the field of electricity through them. Yeah,
21:26
Speaker 1: or current, and all electrical current is a flow of electrons.
21:30
Speaker 1: Movement of electrons produces electricity, and electricity and magnetism are
21:35
Speaker 1: very much related. And this is why because on the
21:38
Speaker 1: atomic level of a ferrous material, iron nickel, cobalt, right,
21:44
Speaker 1: yause are the big ones, what's called.
21:46
Speaker 2: The big three.
21:46
Speaker 1: Well, let's let's talk specifically about iron. In an iron atom,
21:52
Speaker 1: there are around its its orbit. In its orbit, there
21:57
Speaker 1: are electrons moving around.
21:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, would they spin downward or upward?
22:03
Speaker 1: And typically they're paired. And when you have a pair
22:05
Speaker 1: of electrons, one spinning upward, one spinning downward, there's there
22:09
Speaker 1: never any other way. There's no pair of electrons that
22:12
Speaker 1: both spin in the same direction. It is always opposite.
22:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's called the poly exclusion principles.
22:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, just not possible, right exactly. So in iron, you
22:22
Speaker 1: also have four unpaired electrons that all spin the same way. Now,
22:27
Speaker 1: those ones that are paired and spinning the opposite direction,
22:30
Speaker 1: they cancel one another out. Yeah, but these four spinning
22:33
Speaker 1: the same way produce a magnetic field, a very very
22:36
Speaker 1: very very very tiny magnetic field, but a magnetic field nonetheless.
22:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, And this is very unusual for these unpaired
22:43
Speaker 2: electrons to be spinning in the same direction. That's why
22:46
Speaker 2: it only happens in things like iron, cobalt, and nickel.
22:48
Speaker 1: Right exactly. That's what makes them ferromagnetic materials. Yeah, potentially
22:52
Speaker 1: magnetic because they have these unpaired electrons that are spinning
22:55
Speaker 1: in a certain direction. Right, that's right. And then because
22:58
Speaker 1: these things are spinning the same direction, they attract other
23:00
Speaker 1: atoms to kind of line up that are spinning in
23:03
Speaker 1: the same direction, to line up nearby, and then those
23:06
Speaker 1: create what domains.
23:08
Speaker 2: Well, a moment, they have a moment.
23:10
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I forget the moment, just.
23:11
Speaker 2: Call the orbital magnetic moment, and I get it. Maybe
23:15
Speaker 2: that's just when they realize, hey, we're all we're all
23:17
Speaker 2: partying in the same way. We're all spinning downward.
23:20
Speaker 1: Right, and we all like slacks.
23:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, and hey, we've got a magnetic feel all of
23:25
Speaker 2: a sudden. It's small, but let's get a bunch of
23:27
Speaker 2: other ones and let's create a larger one. Right.
23:29
Speaker 1: And that moment is it's it describes the force, the
23:34
Speaker 1: I guess, the power and the direction of the spin.
23:37
Speaker 2: Yeah.
23:37
Speaker 1: So yeah, when you have a bunch of them having
23:39
Speaker 1: the same moment, they kind of line up around one another.
23:42
Speaker 1: When when iron forms, that's right, And then that causes
23:48
Speaker 1: the domain or that creates the little magnetic domains in
23:51
Speaker 1: the material that's right.
23:53
Speaker 2: Uh. And if you notice that materials that make good
23:56
Speaker 2: magnets are the same materials that magnets attract, then it's
24:02
Speaker 2: because they attract unpaired electrons that are spinning in that direction.
24:05
Speaker 2: It's the same thing. And you can also have something
24:09
Speaker 2: called dimagnetic which are unpaired electrons creating a field that
24:15
Speaker 2: repels instead of attracts. And then some materials don't react at.
24:20
Speaker 1: All with magnetics, like pinestraw.
24:23
Speaker 2: I think now is the time for a word from
24:25
Speaker 2: our sponsors. All right, back to magnets, because there's still
24:46
Speaker 2: some more to go.
24:47
Speaker 1: I mean, now everyone who's listening to this understands magnets
24:50
Speaker 1: on a an atomic level. Yeah, it's the spin of electrons.
24:55
Speaker 2: It's physics. Yeah, my favorite thing. Yeah, this one actually
24:59
Speaker 2: appealed to more than usual.
25:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, physics wise, same here. You know, Remember the physics
25:04
Speaker 1: is surfing I do.
25:07
Speaker 2: All right, So people measure magnets to see, you know,
25:11
Speaker 2: how strong the magnetic field is using something called a
25:14
Speaker 2: goss meter, and flux or webers are the what would.
25:22
Speaker 1: You call that measure measure in webers? Okay, so flux
25:25
Speaker 1: is a line of magnetic force coming out of it.
25:28
Speaker 2: But I botch that.
25:29
Speaker 1: That's all right?
25:30
Speaker 2: Okay, So The density of the flux is measured in
25:34
Speaker 2: either Tesla or gossip, with Tesla being ten thousand goths,
25:38
Speaker 2: which is pretty cool that you get a unit of
25:41
Speaker 2: measurement named after you.
25:42
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, if you're Tesla, you better if you're Tesla. Sure,
25:45
Speaker 1: a lot of cool stuff.
25:46
Speaker 2: And you can also measure it in Weber's per square meter,
25:50
Speaker 2: but really, who wants to do that?
25:52
Speaker 1: Yeah?
25:52
Speaker 2: Canada probably, And then the magnitude of the field is
25:57
Speaker 2: measured in ampeers per meter or something called orsted.
26:02
Speaker 1: Yeah. I like orsted, you know, I'm a fan of orsted,
26:05
Speaker 1: and I also like flux and Tesla's pretty awesome too.
26:09
Speaker 2: So where do we use magnets besides pizza reminders or
26:13
Speaker 2: doorbells or doorbells or of course speakers.
26:16
Speaker 1: We use them to if you were in the cassette
26:19
Speaker 1: tapes back in the day, Yeah, brother, you were into magnets,
26:22
Speaker 1: like yeah, yeah. We also use them again, encompasses, burglar alarms,
26:27
Speaker 1: electric motors. We use them to provide torque.
26:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, car speedometers. If you have an old fashioned cathode
26:34
Speaker 2: ray tube television set, you're using magnets. Yep, did you
26:37
Speaker 2: listen to cassettes?
26:38
Speaker 1: What?
26:39
Speaker 2: Sure?
26:39
Speaker 1: Mans? I grew up in the eighties.
26:41
Speaker 2: Okay, I was just I wasn't quite sure. You know,
26:43
Speaker 2: you're a little younger, but I didn't know. No, I
26:45
Speaker 2: was a late adopter. Oh of cassettes, well, no, of everything,
26:49
Speaker 2: because what I would do is I would have a
26:50
Speaker 2: big collection and then be like, I got all these records, right,
26:54
Speaker 2: So I was late to cassettes, and then I had
26:56
Speaker 2: all these cassettes. I didn't want to switch to CDs. Yeah,
26:58
Speaker 2: until all my cassettes got stolen. Oh yeah, and I
27:00
Speaker 2: was like, all right, I guess I'll get CDs.
27:02
Speaker 1: Now, get them going CDs. Yeah, yeah, No, I was
27:04
Speaker 1: there for the big transition from cassettes two CDs. Sure,
27:08
Speaker 1: remember like they were across the board twenty dollars nineteen ninety.
27:12
Speaker 2: Nine, free d in the big box too, remember what
27:14
Speaker 2: I waste?
27:16
Speaker 1: See look at that maglev trains.
27:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, we talked about this. We have a cool one
27:22
Speaker 2: of our little one minute live action shorts online. We uh,
27:26
Speaker 2: maybe I'll post this when we release this. But the
27:28
Speaker 2: mag lev train system and a lot of roller coasters
27:32
Speaker 2: and things like that use super magnets too.
27:34
Speaker 1: I don't remember that one.
27:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, the maglev train uses it. To propel the train forward. Yeah,
27:39
Speaker 2: and don't roller coasters use magnets for breaking a lot
27:42
Speaker 2: of times?
27:42
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, like new ones, Yeah, the good ones.
27:45
Speaker 2: You don't remember that one.
27:46
Speaker 1: No, we did like a dozen of them in four days. Okay,
27:51
Speaker 1: I don't remember that one. I'll send it to you
27:53
Speaker 1: the thank you. The magnetosphere is a part of our atmosphere.
27:57
Speaker 1: I guess it's outside of the atmosphere, but it surrounds
27:59
Speaker 1: Earth in a protective layer that protects it from charged
28:02
Speaker 1: ions known as solar winds. And when these solar winds
28:06
Speaker 1: come in contact with the magnetosphere, you get something that's
28:09
Speaker 1: called the northern or southern lights. Ah, that's what that is.
28:14
Speaker 2: I knew. We talked about that at some point.
28:15
Speaker 1: In another short, that's right.
28:17
Speaker 2: Yeah. And then our favorite, of course, the Wonder Machine,
28:20
Speaker 2: would not be possible without magnets because it is magnetic
28:24
Speaker 2: resonance imaging.
28:26
Speaker 1: Right, you know, and just be resonance imaging without it.
28:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's no fun in that. And then doctor sometimes
28:33
Speaker 2: use pulse electro magnetic fields to actually heal broken bones
28:37
Speaker 2: that haven't healed correctly.
28:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, amazing, I looked into this. They have no idea
28:41
Speaker 1: how it works on a molecular level.
28:43
Speaker 2: Oh really.
28:43
Speaker 1: All they know is that if you expose bone or tissue.
28:48
Speaker 1: I think bones, more bone and muscle maybe are easier
28:53
Speaker 1: to grow to an electromagnetic pulse, it grows. Even if
28:57
Speaker 1: it like it hasn't healed under after surgery any other procedure,
29:02
Speaker 1: if you hit it with an electromagnetic pulse, it'll you'll
29:06
Speaker 1: get a reaction. And they're figuring out how to put
29:08
Speaker 1: this in garments for astronauts. Yeah, because you have you
29:12
Speaker 1: suffer substantial bone loss on a very long micro gravity flight.
29:17
Speaker 1: So they're figuring out how to weave it into their
29:20
Speaker 1: clothes so their clothes can get can blast them with
29:23
Speaker 1: an electromagnetic pulse to make sure they're bone density keeps up.
29:27
Speaker 2: Wow.
29:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's pretty cool. But they don't know why it works.
29:29
Speaker 1: They just know it works.
29:31
Speaker 2: Cows are pretty happy they're magnets because there's this horrific
29:36
Speaker 2: thing called traumatic you know, we'll just call it hardware disease.
29:42
Speaker 2: And this is when when cows eat small metal objects
29:45
Speaker 2: that are in their food. And it's pretty awful that
29:48
Speaker 2: that happens. But luckily they have a cow magnet to
29:51
Speaker 2: feed them, and it I guess gathers up all this
29:54
Speaker 2: stuff and then they poop it out.
29:57
Speaker 1: They I'll bet that's horrible to poop out, isn't that
29:59
Speaker 1: what happens? Or it punctures? Oh the magnet?
30:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the poop the magnet out.
30:04
Speaker 1: I don't know.
30:04
Speaker 2: It surely doesn't just stay in the body, does it.
30:07
Speaker 1: I don't know.
30:08
Speaker 2: All right, I'm gonna have to look into that.
30:09
Speaker 1: Some more people are known to put their arms into
30:12
Speaker 1: cows rears.
30:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, we that some of them have a hole
30:18
Speaker 2: cut in their side, remember, so they can examine their stomach.
30:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, the one with the porthole. Yeah, yeah, that's pretty cool.
30:23
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try this one, traumatic reticulo pericarditis.
30:27
Speaker 2: You practice that beforehand? Well done, So there's nothing wrong
30:31
Speaker 2: with that. Yeah, some people might think practicing hard words
30:35
Speaker 2: before you do a professionally released audio program are a
30:37
Speaker 2: good thing.
30:39
Speaker 1: If if a human swallows a magnet, that's not good.
30:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, you don't want to do that.
30:44
Speaker 1: Cows intestines and stomachs are different than humans and testines
30:47
Speaker 1: and stomachs, and if we swallow, especially more than one magnet,
30:51
Speaker 1: they will basically clamp your entrails together and you will
30:54
Speaker 1: be in big trouble and you'll have to undergo surgery
30:56
Speaker 1: to have them removed.
30:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's no good parents caution to when your
31:01
Speaker 2: kids are playing with magnets because kids like to swallow
31:03
Speaker 2: things they shouldn't swallow.
31:04
Speaker 1: Yeah. And since we talked about electromagnetic pulses being capable
31:09
Speaker 1: of spurring bone loss, is.
31:12
Speaker 2: It boning or growing man spurning bone loss spurring bone growth?
31:17
Speaker 1: Thank you? You would think that people wearing like magnetic
31:22
Speaker 1: bracelets or magnetic insuls are getting some sort of benefit.
31:26
Speaker 1: There's no there's no study that's ever shown that those
31:29
Speaker 1: things actually help. Although there's a lot of people out
31:31
Speaker 1: there who believe in static magnetic therapy, which is just
31:34
Speaker 1: a magnet on your skin. There's no pulse or anything
31:38
Speaker 1: going off, and they think that possibly the people who
31:41
Speaker 1: are adherents to this think that it's either attracting iron
31:45
Speaker 1: in the hemoglobin that kind of makes sense to improve circulation,
31:49
Speaker 1: or it has some sort of effect on the cellular
31:53
Speaker 1: structure in the body, right, and that that's why it
31:58
Speaker 1: helps your back in so help your back, or a bracelet.
32:02
Speaker 2: Helps your arthritis.
32:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, but again there's no studies that suggest this.
32:06
Speaker 2: Well, it's big money. Americans alone spend about five hundred
32:10
Speaker 2: million per year on this kind of thing, and worldwide
32:14
Speaker 2: about five billion dollars a year on magnetic treatment. So
32:17
Speaker 2: the b Yeah, that's a lot of dough, it is.
32:21
Speaker 2: And then there was one more thing. Magnetized drinking water
32:24
Speaker 2: is a thing now to treat ailments, and I think
32:28
Speaker 2: that they have not shown in clinical trials that that's
32:31
Speaker 2: been proven either.
32:32
Speaker 1: Rest of the minerals in drinking water are not ferromagnetic,
32:36
Speaker 1: so to begin with, we didn't have anything to do
32:38
Speaker 1: with it.
32:39
Speaker 2: And they found that in clinical trials a lot of
32:41
Speaker 2: the positive benefits come from placebo maybe or a passage
32:46
Speaker 2: of time, or maybe the fact that these insult cushionings
32:49
Speaker 2: are just better made and more padded to begin with.
32:52
Speaker 1: There's also apparently a device that removes hard water, yeah,
33:00
Speaker 1: minerals from water using magnets, but apparently, again it's not
33:05
Speaker 1: really doing anything as far as consumer report says in
33:08
Speaker 1: a two year study.
33:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, we had a water softener when I lived in Yuma. Yeah,
33:12
Speaker 2: and I'd never heard of that, and I was like,
33:14
Speaker 2: oh what, And it's like, you know, it's in the
33:16
Speaker 2: garage that sort of looked like a hot water heater
33:19
Speaker 2: and it's soft in the water whatever that means.
33:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, do you know what it did?
33:23
Speaker 2: It's soft in the water. Yeah, But I think I
33:26
Speaker 2: remember asking my sister what hard water did, and she
33:28
Speaker 2: was like, oh, you could tell a difference.
33:29
Speaker 1: Like I can't remember your skin real dry, I think.
33:32
Speaker 2: And I think, yeah, I don't remember.
33:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, So that's hard water everyone. If you want to
33:36
Speaker 1: learn more about that, type the word magnets into the
33:39
Speaker 1: search bar at HowStuffWorks dot com. It will bring up
33:42
Speaker 1: this awesome and exhaustive article. Also, if you're interested in doorbells,
33:46
Speaker 1: type that word in the search bar too. And since
33:49
Speaker 1: I said search bar twice, it means we go straight
33:52
Speaker 1: to listener mail.
33:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm gonna call this military shout out. We don't
34:00
Speaker 2: do shout outs that often. Sometimes we do eat a
34:02
Speaker 2: lot of requests, so don't feel bad people if we
34:04
Speaker 2: don't do your shout out. This is from Trevor. Hey guys,
34:09
Speaker 2: my name is Trevor. And yes that it's spelled with
34:12
Speaker 2: a B and not a V. And that is a
34:14
Speaker 2: long story that I'll tell you you would like, but
34:16
Speaker 2: that's not why i'm writing in. I am currently serving
34:19
Speaker 2: in the US arm Forces and I am in stationed overseas.
34:22
Speaker 2: My wife and I recently welcomed my daughter into the world.
34:24
Speaker 2: Congratulations Trevor and wife, and I got to spend some
34:28
Speaker 2: time with them, although not as much as I would
34:30
Speaker 2: like to obviously, before I had to come back overseas.
34:33
Speaker 2: It's been a really long, tough trip being away from them,
34:36
Speaker 2: and even harder on our marriage. I work long hours,
34:39
Speaker 2: and when I come home to talk to my wife,
34:42
Speaker 2: I really dread talking about work, and she really hates
34:45
Speaker 2: talking about herself all the time. So that's when I
34:47
Speaker 2: bring up topics that you guys talk about on the show.
34:50
Speaker 2: I've listened for years and I have turned her onto
34:52
Speaker 2: them as well. And I just wanted to thank you
34:54
Speaker 2: guys and ask if you could give a shout out
34:56
Speaker 2: to her and listener mail. Her name is Tony with
34:59
Speaker 2: an I, So Trevor and Tony Trevor, thanks for your
35:02
Speaker 2: service obviously, and both of you thanks for hanging in
35:06
Speaker 2: there as a military couple. It's tough, yeah, when you're
35:09
Speaker 2: away for that long, and it's quite a sacrifice. My
35:13
Speaker 2: sister and her husband. He's a career marine helicopter pilot.
35:17
Speaker 1: As I mentioned before, Yeah, he's been to Afghanistan, right, Yeah.
35:20
Speaker 2: And they go for you know, long tour six and
35:22
Speaker 2: eight months at a time, and you do enough of
35:24
Speaker 2: those in your life and you realize you're spending years
35:27
Speaker 2: away from your husband or wife totaled up. Yeah, and
35:30
Speaker 2: family and the daughters and sons and so it's tough stuff.
35:33
Speaker 2: So shouting out to you guys hanging there.
35:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks Trevor and Tony. That's pretty awesome that we're
35:40
Speaker 1: like keeping their marriage happy. Well, we're providing a sustenance
35:44
Speaker 1: to talk about it.
35:44
Speaker 2: It's awesome exactly.
35:46
Speaker 1: If you want to let us know how we have
35:49
Speaker 1: helped your marriage, we're very interested in that. You could
35:52
Speaker 1: send us an email to Stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.
35:59
Speaker 1: Stuff You Should is a production of iHeartRadio.
36:02
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