wiz-icon
MyQuestionIcon
MyQuestionIcon
2
You visited us 2 times! Enjoying our articles? Unlock Full Access!
Question

what exactly is magnet ? what makes it to crate magnetic field ? is to do anything with electrons ? what exactly happening at the molecular level ?

Open in App
Solution

A magnet is a material or object that produces a magnetic field. This magnetic field is invisible but is responsible for the most notable property of a magnet: a force that pulls on other ferromagnetic materials, such as iron, and attracts or repels other magnets.

Magnetic fields are caused due to the movement of electrons,so eletron plays an important role in the production of magnetic field.

Magnetism at atomic levels is mostly due to charged particles called electrons. Electrons have spin which give them angular momentum and thus a magnetic moment associated with it. That is the cause of Magnetism at sub atomic levels.
Electrons fill up orbitals in atoms in pairs. 2 paired electrons always have opposite spins and so their magnetic moments cancel each other to give a null magnetic moment. But presence of an unpaired electron in an atom lends magnetic property to it as its magnetic moment remains uncancelled

What makes magnetic field?

While the individual atoms in any substance can have magnetic moments, that doesn't mean the substance itself is magnetic. For the substance to be magnetic, you need a sufficient number of atoms all working together. This requires two things.

The first thing that needs to happen is that there must be some disagreement between the atoms. In many substances, all the electrons line themselves up in orderly pairs, each of them canceling out the magnetic properties of the other. If you imagine 1,000 locomotives, half of them trying to go north and the other half going south, none of them are going to move. So, for a substance to be magnetic, its electrons can't all be paired up.

However, this in itself isn't enough for the substance to be magnetic. Just because a material's electrons don't line up in pairs doesn't necessarily mean that the substance is magnetic. Manganese, for example, an important mineral found in nuts and cereals and essential for healthy bones, is not magnetic, even though its electrons don't line up in pairs. If you had 1001 train engines, 500 facing south and 501 facing north, that extra engine is not going to make much of a difference.

The second thing you need is for a sufficient number of electrons to align themselves parallel to each other – like a lot of locomotives facing in the same direction – so their ability to interact with an external magnetic field is substantial enough to move the entire object.


flag
Suggest Corrections
thumbs-up
0
Join BYJU'S Learning Program
similar_icon
Related Videos
thumbnail
lock
Light spectrum Tackle
PHYSICS
Watch in App
Join BYJU'S Learning Program
CrossIcon