Here are some things to do to finish this section.

• What question did you think of that could be studied, or observation could you make that is interesting or unexpected? Send it to the Question board!

1. (a)If we cut a long bar magnet in two, to make two shorter ones, will the pieces want to stay together or fly apart?
   (b) If we break one of the flat black magnets as shown, will the pieces want to stay together or fly apart?
   You should be able to figure out these without actually breaking a magnet. Of course, you should explain your reasoning, and discuss the implications.
   
   
2. Give examples of how magnets are used around the house, at school, in your car. Using your compass, try to determine where the poles are for some of the magnets.
3. We have been describing magnets and how they interact in terms of their poles. However, there is another way to describe them, in which we draw arrows on the sides of the magnet instead of poles on the ends (these arrows have nothing to do with the magnetic field arrows we were drawing earlier). The arrows run around the magnet, so that when you view the magnet from one pole end, they describe a one-way path around the magnet.

   Decorate some of your magnets with arrows like these, and then observe how they account for the interaction of magnets, for the various cases that the magnets are end-to-end or side-by-side: what are the arrows doing when the magnets are attracting, and what are they doing when the magnets are repelling? How could you use the "arrow" description to explain the behavior of the broken magnet shown above?

This is the end of this unit. (Check this box )   The next section is about electromagnetism

Another page that you may find interesting: Why study magnets?