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Broken Magnets and Field Strength
Name: Breanna S.
Status: student
Age: N/A
Location: N/A
Country: N/A
Date: N/A
Question:
If a magnet is broken in half, is it still as strong as if
it was whole?
Replies:
The answer is both yes and no, depending on where you look.
Right at the surface of the magnet, and I do not mean just 'close', but
right at, the magnet would be the same strength regardless of its size.
That is because the field right next to the magnet is determined by how
magnetized the material is, not how much of the material there is.
However, if you move away from the magnet, the distance that the magnet
casts a magnetic field get smaller as the magnet gets smaller. So the
half-size magnet would have a half-sized magnetic field strength at a
distance.
Hope this helps,
Burr Zimmerman
Credit Dr. Maciej Zborowski of the Cleveland Clinic for the substance of
this response.
The size of the magnet is very important as to its field effect. magnets
are measured by gauss units......in concept a magnet can have or be small
and still have a high gauss level, as well as being large and having less
field effect.
Prof. Przekop, Physicist
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Update: June 2012
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