Cambridge School Noida
Class-7-Exploring Magnets -notes
What is Magnet?
Objects, which attract magnetic materials like cobalt, nickel and iron are called magnets.
Types of Magnets
Natural Magnets, Artificial Magnets, Electromagnet
Natural Magnet: Magnetite is called natural magnet.
Shapes of Magnets: Magnets are made of different materials and in different
shapes.
bar magnet, cylindrical magnet, horseshoe magnet, dumb-bell shaped magnet, etc.
Magnetic compass
The magnetic compass is a simple device, which has been used from the ancient times
by the sailors and other travelers to find directions.
Magnetic and non-magnetic materials
Materials that get attracted towards a magnet are called magnetic materials. E.g. iron,
cobalt or nickel.
Materials that do not get attracted by a magnet are nonmagnetic materials. E.g. wood,
plastic etc.
Poles of a Magnet
Every magnet is bipolar, i.e. They have 2 poles at the
extremities. called the North and the South poles of a
magnet.
Attraction and Repulsion between Magnets
Like poles repel each other, while unlike poles attract
each other.
Inseparable Poles
Magnetic poles always exist in pairs.
If you cut a bar magnet in half, it forms 4 poles, each half
having a north and a south pole.
Using magnets to find directions
When a bar magnet is suspended freely by a thread, it aligns itself to the direction of
North.
Travelers have used this property of magnets for ages to find directions.
A compass is a device with a magnetized needle pivoted inside a box covered by glass,
which points to the direction of north and is a useful tool for finding directions.
Making a magnet
The magnetic material can be made into a magnet by rubbing a magnet on the surface of
the magnetic material in one direction only.
Loss of magnetic property
The magnetic property of a magnet is lost on:
Heating , Hammering or hitting, Dropping
Store your magnets safely:
To keep them safe, bar magnets should be kept in
pairs with their unlike poles on the same side. They
must be separated by a piece of wood while two
pieces of soft iron should be placed across their
ends.
CASE SYUDY-A new theory helps explain the epic mystery of bird migration
Birds are way better than people at finding their way. The
Eurasian reed warbler might look like any other small brown
bird, but up in the air it does something extraordinary. It
travels more than 7,000 kilometers (4,350 miles) each year
between Europe and Africa, crossing the Sahara Desert and
flying as high as 6,000 meters (nearly 4 miles), sometimes
staying airborne for 30 hours straight.
Even more impressive is its ability to navigate with extreme precision. Year after year, many
Eurasian reed warblers, which each weigh half as much as a golf ball, return to the exact same
patch of European forest to breed. Scientists sometimes catch them in the very same net they did
the year before. And it’s not just warblers. Species from city pigeons to cuckoos are able to
home in to a precise location, as if it’s saved in some kind of internal Google Maps.
Birds navigate in many ways, among them sight, smell, and even the stars. Perhaps most
remarkably, they seem endowed with some kind of biological compass that helps them follow
Earth’s magnetic field — an invisible field produced by the planet’s rotation and liquid-metal
core. The mysteries of magnetic perception in birds have intrigued scientists for decades. Now
we have some fresh clues into this astonishing ability. A new study in the journal Science
suggests that Eurasian reed warblers — and likely other migratory songbirds — sense a specific
aspect of Earth’s magnetic field, called the angle of inclination, to know where to roost on their
journey north. It functions as a kind of magnetic address or “stop sign,” the researchers write,
that tells the birds when they’ve arrived.
Q1. What is a magnetic field?
Q2. Why does a freely suspended magnet always point north south direction?
[Link] do the migratory birds travel back home with so precision after travelling so far from
their home places?
Q4. Write some applications of magnets.