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Similars Attract
Aug. 15th, 2004 05:10 pmIf you ask just about anyone what the fundamental rule of magnets is, they would probably tell you, "Opposites Attract."
That's not actually an accurate way of thinking about it, though. The north and south pole of magnets are opposites in the sense that the field points out from the magnet at the north pole and in to the magnet at its south pole, but that is really about all that concept is useful for.
In reality, it is when two magnets' fields are aligned in the same direction, not the opposite, that they attract each other. In other words, they act a lot like the electrons that I wrote about earlier, only with more cooperation. Magnets can work together to increase the overall strength of their fields because it goes in one side of a magnet and out the other. Electrons can't because their field comes out of them in all directions (or into them, depending on how picky you want to be ;)
Electrons and protons are the same way; the field comes out of one and goes into the other, which is why they are always attracted to each other; the closer they get, the stronger the field between them becomes.
In reality (I think) there really isn't any such thing as positive and negative electrical fields; there is just magnitude and direction. What most people refer to as a "negative" field is the same as a positive field that points in the opposite direction.
That's not actually an accurate way of thinking about it, though. The north and south pole of magnets are opposites in the sense that the field points out from the magnet at the north pole and in to the magnet at its south pole, but that is really about all that concept is useful for.
In reality, it is when two magnets' fields are aligned in the same direction, not the opposite, that they attract each other. In other words, they act a lot like the electrons that I wrote about earlier, only with more cooperation. Magnets can work together to increase the overall strength of their fields because it goes in one side of a magnet and out the other. Electrons can't because their field comes out of them in all directions (or into them, depending on how picky you want to be ;)
Electrons and protons are the same way; the field comes out of one and goes into the other, which is why they are always attracted to each other; the closer they get, the stronger the field between them becomes.
In reality (I think) there really isn't any such thing as positive and negative electrical fields; there is just magnitude and direction. What most people refer to as a "negative" field is the same as a positive field that points in the opposite direction.
