Magned deffinicion

[bloody-orc]

For some time i have been searching for a good definicion for a magnet. i know one can define it as an object that has magnet field around it but that's not a good definicion as word magnet is used to define this thing. it's not good to define an unknown with an unknown...

so i'm searching for a better deffinicion for a magnet without the use of word magnetic field of any form of word magnet( not even in foreign languag a )

 

[Papabravo]

A magnet is any material where the preponderance of atoms have the same principal quantum numbers. These numbers imply moving electric charges. The electric charges move in such a way as to be accelerating and decelerating. Accelerating and decelerating charges absorb and release energy and they produce forces in free space on other moving charges.

 

[Hero999]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnet

 

[bloody-orc]

i was hoping for an interesting and scientiffic discusion on that topic, but instead i get nothing... papabrovo gave a nice explenation that could be true, but heros link is well... how to put this... irrelevant and something i wasn't expecting. as there they also define it as an object having a magnetic field.
oh well it seems thet hede are not so scientiffically advanced "creatures" than i hoped for
(no ofence for those, who know the answer and just cant write this in english or just dont want to discuss over this...)

 

[evandude]

What makes you think that defining a magnet as "something with a magnetic field" is a recursive definition? that would be true if the definition of magnetic fields was "something a magnet has", but that's not the case. Quite simply, you CAN define magnetic field without defining a magnet, but not vice versa. Read the definition of magnetic field:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_field

In physics, a magnetic field is that part of the electromagnetic field that exists when there is a changing electric field. A changing electric field can be caused by the movement of an electrically charged object, as in an electric current; or a combination of the orbit of an electron around an atom and the spin of electrons themselves, as in a permanent magnet.

if you are really concerned about having a single definition, it really shouldn't be too hard for you to combine those two definitions together.

It seems your concept of what a definition may and may not contain is skewed. By your logic, it would be improper to define a light bulb as a device that uses electricity to produce light, because it has the word 'light' in it, or that you have to know what a light bulb is to define light itself... and that makes no sense.

Guess what, it's pretty common to define things in terms of other, established definitions, otherwise every time you needed to define something, you'd have to explain half of physics to go with it. If someone does not feel that the definition is sufficient, then they have the freedom to look at the definitions of the concepts in terms of which the original thing was defined. For example, if you don't feel that "something with a magnetic field" is a sufficient definition of a magnet, you are free to look at the definition of magnetic fields. and if you don't find that definition sufficient, you can then look at the other things used to explain it; electromagnetic fields, electric charges, current, electrons, atoms, etc. and then you can keep digging down through an ever-expanding heirarchy of definitions and explanations until your head explodes, or you reach the end of the current knowledge of physics, whichever comes first.

 

[bloody-orc]

well the problem was and is that we couldnt define magnet with magnetic field as we didn't know what magnetic field was... so you cant efine an unknown with an unknowdn...
it was just a challange wanted to solve in physics class and nothing else. i know that one can and should define a magnet using magnetic field but we just wanted to try it without it just to make things difficult and make most of the class feel ill...

we came to dipoles what are tiny magnets inside a magnet, so couldnt use them either so got to quantum physics and solved it there using spins.'

PS nice example with the light and lightbulb, but it only works in englis... in estonian there is no light in lightbulb if you know what i mean .

 

[evandude]

well I guess as a thought exercise it's a good challenge, but in reality you still did the same type of thing that I said; you go down through multiple levels of definitions, until you get to the very basic physics of it, even if you're throwing out the higher level definitions as you go. there's a big difference between 'defining an unknown with an unknown' and defining an unknown with something else that you then define as well. if you want to get nit-picky, talking about "knowns" and "unknowns", even taking it to the level of quantum physics and spins still relies on taking some things for granted; you could keep going and breaking it down forever, except that human knowledge of physics isn't infinite. And in the end, you don't end up with a "better" definition of a magnet, just a more complicated one.

but it definitely sounds like something a physics teacher would make their students do, to stretch their minds

 

[bloody-orc]

well it strenghend only my mind as i was the only one who understanded what the hell we were talking about. when we got to the dipoles 90% of the class faded out and started doing something else. when we got to spins i was the only wan talking and explaining... oh well... that's the problem with school. in physics, i'm a bit smarter, i have better english knlowlage than my english teacher, i'm smarter than my maths teacher... what the hell do i do in the school you ask? well i take out my laptop and read something more interesting on the internet...

 

[Papabravo]

... papabrovo gave a nice explenation that could be true...

Can you provide any evidence to refute what I said, or are you just engaging in contrarian behavior by questioning what you don't understand.

Go have a nice life reading articles on the internet.

 

[bloody-orc]

i dont know if it's true so i couldnt say for certain. if you confirme it's true it's good.

 

[n.house]

How about, a magnet is a ferous metal with it's electrons commonly aligned or a magnet is not a bit of wood.
Kindest Regards

 

[bloody-orc]

magnet is not ferous

 

[magnetomachine]

What about, a magnet is a piece of material (as you can not say it is metal) that has the ability to attract metallic objects and repel other magnets provided that they are alike i.e south pole repels south pole

 

[dknguyen]

What about, a magnet is a piece of material (as you can not say it is metal) that has the ability to attract metallic objects and repel other magnets provided that they are alike i.e south pole repels south pole

Charged particles also behave the same way. The definition is in the quantum spin (or at least I think that's what it's called).

 

[magnetomachine]

''The definition is in the quantum spin (or at least I think that's what it's called).''
What's the ''quantum spin'' ?

 

[Bob Scott]

Wow, this 2006 thread has been revived.

Nobody brought up the fact that, unlike gravity, a magnet is bipolar in nature. Ferromagnetic meterials are attracted to the GAP between the poles. The ferromagnetic material can more easily contain lines of force (field density) than free space or air. As the field shrinks it becomes a lower energy level, thus attracting the material.
Diamagnetic materials (eg: a common grape is an example) can absorb less lines of force than free space, so these materials increase the energy level as they approach a magnetic gap, so are repelled by the magnet.

You can't get away from mentioning the magnetic field and the lines of force to explain magnet behaviour and understand it intuitively.

 

[magnetomachine]

So in essence, you are saying that a magnet is precisely a .................. (please fill in the blank space)

 

[dknguyen]

THe physical phenomena that causes the generation of magnetic fields is associated with terms like "quantum spin", "electron spin" "magnetic moment", or variations of it like "magnetic dipole moment" or "spin magnetic moment". It's really strange ultra-physicsy mathy stuff. I won't explain it here because I don't know it well enough. You are best off if you Google and Wiki those terms to find out what they actually are.

To get you started...
**broken link removed**)

 

[3iMaJ]

What always confuses me about this dicussion is how the Lorentz force equation is some how an insufficient definition of a magnetic field. A field is defined to be magnetic field such that when an electric charge moving with some vector velocity v is crossed with that field it produces a force.

That is the definition of a magnetic field. Magnetic field - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Certainly there are other equivalent definitions as the author notes, but this is a viable definition.

The Lorentz force equation is one of the fundamental definitions of electromagnetics, it seems like a reasonable place to start.

 

[magnetomachine]

you guys haven't exactly answered my question

So in essence, you are saying that a magnet is precisely a .................. (please fill in the blank space)