why a magnet when freely suspended rests in north-south direction?
88162
This can get quite complicated, but I do not think you want a complicated answer. \n\nThere is a force that magnets produce on each other. Like poles (two norths or two souths) repel, and opposite poles repel (one north and one south). \n\nThe forces caused by these magnetic force causes a torque to be applied to the suspended magnetic, overcoming the resistance of the string to twisting. This causes the magnetic to turn, and eventually align itself in the minimum energy position, aligned with the external magnetic field at that location, which in most places on the surface of the earth, points towards the north magnetic pole. \n\nThis is not always true, of course, because there are all kinds of complicated fine structure details to the local magnetic fields caused by buried magnetic materials nearby, such as magnetite. \n\nThe north magnetic pole is close to the geographic North pole, but not exactly the north pole, which is why in many places the compass reading has to be corrected by adding or subtracting a figure called the declination. The magnetic pole also migrates every year by a few miles, so the magnetic declination at any given location changes as a function of time as well.
757349
HI.  Great questions.  just realised i only got 2 points for answering.  anyway.  Weird magnets aren't they.  they always have a north and a south pole.  Almost like a mini Earth!  at the centre of the earth matter is so supper heated that it almost, but not quite, turns into energy. This raw force changes into a mix of matter and energy, producing and expelling a strong field of power.   When volcanoes were very active in earths early years, quite frequently this strange mix spewed into our atmoshere and solidified quickly.  magnetism was trapped during this process and magnets were born.  strange but very true.  I L U J L.
977241
The axis, and therefore, poles, gravitational pull is slowly changing. (Therefore changing due Norths position.)  That's alot of observant Sailors.
698855
The directional North pole of the earth is a magnetic south pole, this is because the north end of a compass points north, and opposites attract, therefore north is...south.\n\nMagnetic lines go from south to north i think, sorry havn't taken electricity/mag class in so long...\n\nanyways, if my thining is correct than it would point towards the directional south\n\ni'd choose "down"
925593
Don't pay any attention to the girl who said, "So we won't float away." The earth's magnetic field has nothing to do with holding us to the earth. What seems to be happening, and this is still in the theory stage, is this. The solid inner core which is almost entirely iron and the liquid outer core which is probably composed mainly of a nickel-iron alloy are rotating at different speeds and because of the turbulence in the outer core they act together as a giant electric generator (dynamo) to produce an electric current. This in turn produces a magnetic field in the same way as an electric current passing through a coil forms an electromagnet. In other words the earth is a giant electromagnet which produces a field that can be measured far into space.
585209
Its not so much one pole attracting the needlepoint so much as the entire magnetic metal beneath the needle aligning to the magnetic field lines*. North and South are just directional names; the most powerful magnet at the time magnetism was discovered was the earth, so naturally, they used the locations of the Earth's poles to name every magnet's pole.\n\n*Magnetic field lines are lines of force connecting the North and South poles of every magnetic object. Place a magnet under a piece of paper and sprinkle iron filings on top, and you'll be able to 'see' them. \n\nThe magnetosphere is the name given to the Earth's magnetic field, which extends into space and gives us protection against much of the charged particle radiation from the sun. This 'solar wind' interacting with our magnetosphere is what causes the auroras over the poles.
426889
Antigravity, but that hasn't been proven.  Magnetism works when you have two magneticaly charged objects.
177391
No\n\nThe reason this has\nnever happened is due to the source of magnetic fields:  moving electric\ncharges.  When electric charges (e.g. electrons) move in circles, they\nproduce a magnetic field.  In a piece of iron, it is very easy to line up\nthese circles, getting all the little magnets to work together as one big\nmagnet.\n\nFor each of these circles, one side is the north pole and one side is the\nsouth pole.  Since each circle has two sides, each circle has a north and a\nsouth pole.  Even the smallest possible magnets (spinning electrons) have a\nnorth and a south pole.
1089728
there is a layer of magnetic rock beneath the earth's crust that has a magnetic force pointing in one set direction. the needle of a compass is made of a material that reacts with this magnetic force and is pushed in the same direction as the force points
778516
as far as i know of, yes.\n\nthink, the man made magnets create their own magnetic field and have always been exposed to the earths magnetic field. Reguardless of the man made one's position, they still emit the same pull towards each other based on their own magnetic fields. Just like magnets work in outer space, they should work at the north and south poles. (also, the man made magnets pull isn't effected when you connect multiple ones together so off of this example, they should work at the north and south poles also.)
511616
First: Gravity is due to mass, while magnetism is due to the movement of an electric charge.  For earth, this is believed to be caused by the movement of ions within the earth, the magma near the core.\n\nSecond: The poles of a magnet were misnamed.  They named the poles of a magnet because of the direction they pointed.  However, once the properties of magnetism were truly understood, it was too late.  So, appropriately, it could be said that near the north pole is the south magnetic pole, but I'm sure most teachers would frown upon that assertion.\n\nOther notes about magnetism on earth: The earth is imperfect.  The magnetic field is not uniform, so there are variations.  Magnetic north is not geographic north in all situations.  The earth is tilted, and we don't really know the flow of the magma that causes the magnetic field all that well.  Not to mention, there is speculation that magnetic north and south may flip at some point in time, but the mechanism of this is lost on me.  It has happened a very long time ago, and is expected to happen again sometime in the future.
1137048
Well it is certainly not a "perpetual motion" type of device. Magnets gradually lose their magnetism as their "disorder" increases. Their "disorder" increases when they contribute to "order" in ferrous objects in their proximity. Need to increase the "order" in your magnet? Wrap a coil around it and connect it to a DC source. Different materials will "retain" different amounts of residual magnetism ("order") after the power source is switched off. Natural magnets would have been exposed over centuries to small, but significant electrical stresses during their formation. They too would gradually lose it as their "disorder" increases. To answer your question - magnets owe it to electrical energy imprinted in ferrous memory.
54860
When talking about a magnet large enough to be handled (and broken), it can be thought of as a collection of smaller magnets.  These smaller magnets are all aligned from north to south poles on each end.  If you got two 1" x 1/2" magnets, and put them end to end, N to S, they would make a magnet double the length of the original, and the ends would attract.  If you take the now 2" magnet apart, you have two magnets.  In practice, this is exactly what happened when you broke the magnet.  The pieces are still magnetic, with a north and south pole.  Therefore if you take the 2 pieces and put north to north or south to south, they will repel, and vice versa if north to south, they will attract.  No one yet has found just a south pole, or just a north pole, and that causes a stir in the scientific community.  You can keep crushing the magnet to bits and the tiny fragments will still have a north and south pole, and act like tiny little bar magnets.
22759
A permanent magnet uses ferromagnetism, which - in laymen's terms - is caused by a huge number small electromagnets in the form of unpaired electrons orbiting an atom. In permanent magnets, these elementary magnets are mostly oriented the same way.\n\nBy heating the permanent magnet, the atoms are excited into vibrations which may change the orientation of the elementary magnets. Rather than acting in concert, the magnets become randomly aligned if the permanent magnet is heated long enough.\n\n\nStars and planets generate magnetic fields in a different way.
104827
An electromagnet , it is temporary magnet.without the electrocity, it is not a magnet.
1097043
Sorry, but as far as I can tell, it doesn't exist.\n\nThen again, I know nothing about this area of interest.\nI like enio_giacomini's answer. Go with that.\nThen again, he answered that "magnet" question with "In center," which makes no sense at all.  Whatever. Your call.
1173935
Magnetic field has to do with the polarize charge of material, such as Iron.  \n\nIt is believed there is significant Iron near the center of the earth and yes rotation will cause the charges to align and thus create a magnetic field.  This is called the "Dynamo Theory".\n\nJUST BEING IRON DOES NOT MAKE THINGS MAGNETIC.\n\n"Previous theorists have assumed that the entire Core (or the Inner and/or Outer Core) rotates as a single flowing object within the Earth. If that were the case, then all of the charged (ionized) Iron material  would follow a relatively circular path around a single axis that we could call the Magnetic Axis. Basic Physics tells us that when electrical charges follow a closed (relatively) circular path (which is effectively a current), a magnetic field is always created as a result. The measurable evidence of this scenario would be a simple "dipole" magnetic field, with a single North Pole and a single South Pole, geographically exactly opposite each other on the surface of the Earth."\n\nSo if this theory where correct the Earth stopping it's rotation would in allow the magnetic field to fad.  But there are major problems with the theory.  For example it is known that the magnetic poles have flipped (Switched places) several time in Earths past.  Will if we have magnetic poles because of the earth's rotation to switch poles we'd need to reverse the cores rotation.  This would be an ungodly amount of energy.  There is nothing known that would do this once let alone a number of times.  And even if something could do it, we should have seen signs of the massive damage that would have resulted with these forces in play, like the Earth falling apart.   But in fact the poles shifting seems to be a pretty peaceful process on a planetary scale. \n\nAnd that is only one problem with the theory.  This is actually a very, very complex subject and there really is no way to know what effect the Earth stopping would have on the magnetic fields.  But I have attached a link to a very good article on the subject and it's pretty easy reading (Keeps the scientific jargon down and uses layman terms.)\n\nOthers are correct tough in what holds us to the Earth is gravity, not magnetics.  So it's the Mass (How big and dense it is) that keeps us here.  And rotation actually wants to make thing's fly away from it.  So we stay because the Earths gravity overcomes the acceleration.  So the acceleration of 1000mph is actually always enacting upon us, making us want to fly off the planet.  So stopping the Earth will not make us fly off as others have posted.\n\nThink of the spinning rids at the fairs and theme parks.  When you spin you are thrown away from the axis, the best example is the cylinder you go in and stand up against the wall.  When it spins your back is pushed against the wall, even as it turns so you are now spinning vertically like a tired, instead of horizontal like a top.  But when they stop the ride you don't go flying out.  That's because the wall holds you in and your move with the ride.  Well gravity acts like the wall and you move with the earth.\n\nYou would go flying of the earth if it continued to rotate and the gravity field somehow disappeared.