- #1
Guest432
- 48
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Hello PF!
I am writing a scientific report about magnets, but have really no clue how magnets actually work? Research has yielded a few ideas, specifically from here and here.
and the other
I would take this as said, but these are relatively old explanations and I was just curious if up until this year, 2016, there have been any developments in the study of magnetism to explain this better? Say, two neodymium magnets, why do they attract, and how are they so powerful!?
I am writing a scientific report about magnets, but have really no clue how magnets actually work? Research has yielded a few ideas, specifically from here and here.
However, sometimes (in iron, nickel, and cobalt for example) you’ll have one or more un-paired electrons. The magnetic fields of these electrons aren’t canceled out by another, oppositely-oriented, electron. As such they lend an overall magnetic field to the atom they inhabit.
and the other
In most materials almost all the electrons form pairs, with the magnetism from the two paired electrons exactly canceling. The result ultimately is due to something called the Pauli exclusion principle, which says that no more than one electron can exist in any particular quantum state. So if there's some nice low-energy state waveform for an electron to sit in in some molecule, it tends to get two electrons for the two possible quantum states with that form: one spin up, the other spin down.
I would take this as said, but these are relatively old explanations and I was just curious if up until this year, 2016, there have been any developments in the study of magnetism to explain this better? Say, two neodymium magnets, why do they attract, and how are they so powerful!?