Magnetic Field Lines

WHAT TO DO

Carefully remove the black stopper from one end of the cube. Slide the silver magnet out of the cube into your hand, but donπt drop it on the floor. Shake up the liquid inside the cube. Put the magnet back into the cube and replace the stopper.

Watch how the small black particles move in the cube. What patterns form?

HOW IT WORKS

The cube is fill with oil, a thick liquid, and small pieces of iron, the black particles. When you shook up the cube the iron particles were left suspended uniformly throughout the liquid. Iron is a magnetic metal, like the front of most refrigerators, so it is attracted by a magnetic. When you put the magnet inside the cube it attracted the iron particles toward it. The iron particles arrange themselves in a pattern that shows us how the magnetic effects vary in space around the magnet. In physics we call these magnetic effects that extend into the space around the magnet a magnetic field.