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Ellis Abel Learns.

In my own words

Why I love magnets

A test model of the long magnetometer boom for the Europa Clipper spacecraft laid out for checkout at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Magnets" page.
A test model of the long magnetometer boom for the Europa Clipper spacecraft laid out for checkout at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. NASA/JPL-Caltech · Public domain
  • It pushes without touching.
  • There is something there I cannot see.
  • The whole earth is one.

What it really is

A magnet makes a field that pulls or pushes other magnets without contact.

Three things to try today

  1. Find what a magnet sticks to and what it does not.
  2. Make a list of both.
  3. Find the rule.

For the grown-up reading this

Sorting into two piles and finding the rule is classification, the oldest scientific act.

Why I love magnets — 4,299 places across America

Alabama (87)
Alaska (33)
Arizona (43)
Arkansas (86)
California (273)
Colorado (85)
Connecticut (27)
D.C. (1)
Delaware (5)
Florida (158)
Georgia (185)
Hawaii (8)
Idaho (54)
Illinois (155)
Indiana (117)
Iowa (112)
Kansas (116)
Kentucky (129)
Louisiana (81)
Maine (21)
Maryland (35)
Massachusetts (53)
Michigan (120)
Minnesota (111)
Mississippi (88)
Missouri (131)
Montana (61)
Nebraska (97)
Nevada (22)
New Hampshire (13)
New Jersey (45)
New Mexico (40)
New York (90)
North Carolina (127)
North Dakota (57)
Ohio (124)
Oklahoma (88)
Oregon (51)
Pennsylvania (88)
Rhode Island (6)
Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (5)
South Carolina (65)
South Dakota (68)
Tennessee (114)
Texas (340)
Utah (48)
Vermont (16)
Virginia (158)
Washington (77)
Washington, D.C. (1)
West Virginia (64)
Wisconsin (95)
Wyoming (25)

Love something else too

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