Natural and Artificial Magnets

 

Natural Magnets 

There are several stories about who discovered magnets, the most common story is that it was discovered accidentally in Greece by a shepherd, he noticed that a big black rock has pulled his rod, the name Magnet is derived from his name which is Magnes at about the year 2000 B.C.. 

Others deny that story and suggest that the name magnet came from the place that the rock was found which is Magnesia. This was the history of discovering natural magnet.

An example of a natural magnet is the lodestone, also called magnetite. Other examples are pyrrhotite, ferrite, and columbite.

The uses of the natural magnets varied from one place to another all over the world. Some Greek thought of magnets as magic due to their ability of attracting objects. Other Greeks and Romans used the magnet to drive away the spirits and to cure diseases.

The first useful invention using magnet was the compass. The Chinese noticed that when making a needle from the magnet and placing it on top of some water, the needle always point to north. So the Chinese made the military compass about 2000 B.C. At about the same time or afterwards the Vikings also invented the compass and used it to invade England using the fog to cover them. 

Artificial Magnet

Artificial magnets are magnets made by people. For artificial magnets, you have permanent magnets whose magnetic strength never fades and you have temporary magnets that aren't always magnetic. Artificial magnets are the magnets formed by artificial means like single touch method, double touch method, induction method and electric method. Natural magnets are magnets that we obtain from nature whereas artificial magnets are those magnets that are made form artificial means or are many made. and that you can turn on via an electric current or another magnet.

The artificial magnet was first invented in the year 1600 William Gilbert (1544-1603) an English physician. 

William Gilbert

William Gilbert proved that the earth is a big magnet, and he was the first to make artificial magnet.

In 1820, the Dutch scientist Hans Christian Oersted discovered the relationship between electricity and magnetism, and French physicist Andre Ampere further expanded upon this discovery in 1821.

In the early 1900s, scientists began studying magnetic materials other than those based on iron and steel. By the 1930s, researchers had produced the first powerful Alnico alloy permanent magnets.  These magnets take their name from the chemical symbols for the aluminum-nickel-cobalt elements used to make the alloy.