Oh, wow, oh, oh, wow, oh, wow, oh, man.

Oh, my. Hello, you're listening to the Science of Everything podcast, episode 61, magnetism.

And I'm your host, James Fodor.

In this episode, we're going to look at magnets, magnetic fields, magnetic poles,

electromagnets, basically all the core concepts of magnetism.

We're going to look at how they work and why magnetic forces are caused.

So we'll talk about the different types of magnetic materials responsible for that,

so pharaoh magnets, paramagnets, and diamagnets.

I'll also talk about some applications of magnetism, including electric motors and generators,

and I'll end with a brief discussion of Maxwell's equations.

Recommended pre-listing for this podcast is episode 43, Electric Fields and Forces.

Okay, let's get started. First of all, to introduce magnets and magnetism. So what are magnets?

Probably everyone who's listening to this has played with magnets before, they're quite a fascinating

things and the, as far back as the ancient Greeks, I think even earlier than that, we have records

of them uncovering and using a material called lodestone, which is a form of iron oxide,

and it's a naturally occurring mineral, well, all minerals are naturally occurring, but anyway, it's a naturally occurring rock which attracts pieces of iron, so it's naturally magnetized.

It's, as far as I know, the only real example of a mineral like that, which just in its natural form is strongly magnetic.

It turns out that you can actually transfer this magnetic property to pieces of iron and some other metals.

So if you rubber iron, like a small iron nail or whatever, with a lodestone, it will become magnetized,

and then you can take that magnetized piece of iron and use it to attract other pieces of iron,

so you can transfer the magnetism to other pieces of metal.

So this fascinated the ancient Greeks and people's throughout history, as far as I understand.

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