After 37 years, you've filled a major gap in my understanding of physics. Your explainations are truely gifts that benefit all of humanity. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.❤

That was the clearest answer that I’ve heard to the question about why there are magnets. Thank you

The step-wise explanation from small to larger of what has to happen for something to be a magnet was so helpful! That really cleared up the concept for me. I really wish schooling and even universities could use such clear conceptual explanations

As a Juggalo, I appreciate the thorough explanation.

2:15 One correction to Dr. Dan's narrative. Electrons are not FOUND INSIDE CLOUDS, they are most likely to be found in volumes of space that have different cloud shapes. There are no empty clouds into which electrons are located, the electrons themselves form clouds. 4:51 Unfortunately the term "electron spin" misleads people into thinking electrons are tiny particles spinning like tops or gyroscopes. Electrons exhibit a property similar to that which they would have if they did spin, but electrons DO NOT SPIN! In atoms the electron spin is the fourth quantum number for the electron and has values of +1/2 and -1/2, which we simplify this by saying up and down spin. Each orbital cannot be made up of two electrons with the same spin which limits each orbital to two electrons, one with spin +1/2 (up) and one with spin -1/2 (down). The ability to retain magnetism after the magnetic field has been removed is called spontaneous or remanent magnetization. There are four elements that exhibit this attribute, Iron (Fe), Cobalt (Co), Nickel (Ni), Atomic numbers 26, 27, 28 as well as Gadolinium (Gd) atomic number 64. Iron, Cobalt, and Nickel all get their magnetism from 3d orbitals having four (4), three (3) and two (2) unpaired 3d electrons respectively. Looking at Iron (Fe) on the periodic table we see that it has partially filled d orbitals. Iron has six (6) electrons forming d orbitals in the third energy level (3d) There are five (5) d orbitals each composed of two electrons. The rule is that all five orbitals must be formed by one electron before pairing occurs. Since there are six (6) electrons, one orbital has a pair of electrons leaving four (4) unpaired electrons. Cobalt (Co) has one more pair (one less unpaired), and Nickel has two more pairs (2 less unpaired). Gadolinium is different with the electron configuration, [Xe] 4f⁷ 5d¹ 6s², having seven (7) unpaired electrons in 4f orbitals as well as a single unpaired electron in the 5d orbital. We have all heard that neodymium magnets are the strongest magnets available, but they are not made of the element Neodymium (Nd) alone but are actually made of Nd2Fe14B (Neodymium, Iron, Boron).

I can't say how many times I've wondered about this, thank you for the simple explanation 🎉

Back in the day people were hatin' on ICP for asking the question, Magnets, how do they work? But its a fair question. Decade later and we still need fermilab to lay it down for us. Great video!

Every time I see a video like this--or an earnest answer from a physicist to a truly vexing question--I think about how everyone dissed ICP for asking (in a song), "Magnets. How do they work?!"

The magic is really in Part 1 - why/how electrons are magnets. Great explanation of the rest!

Insane Clown Posse has entered the chat.

A great video with explanations easy to follow. Thank you 😊

I actually feel like I have a pretty good grasp on how magnets work now, an excellent video as always Dr. Don! What was once utterly opaque has been rendered transparent (much like the universe ;D )

Brilliant, Don. I love your videos, you explain really complicated things in terms I can understand!

This is by far the best video I've seen on the topic. Excellent job.

There's another video in which Richard Feynman is asked the same question, but his philosophical answer left me somewhat unsatisfied. I appreciate your ability to explain material like this elegantly and in terms that a casual person like me can understand. Thank you, Dr. Lincoln!

Great explanation Don!! Linear, logic and above all convincing 👍

I love your videos so much. So happy to see new ones coming out :)

I for one feel they're even more magical now - my understanding has passed from caution out of a sense of separateness from mystery into a sense of connection from wonder. Figuring out the universe seems to make it come even more alive to me. Thank you for the explainer!

how magnets work is an interesting question, because no one knows what magnetic force really is including Fermilab

Thanks so much Dr. Don for that explanation!! Like many others, I can now understand the basic concepts of how a magnet works at the atomic level. I do have another question though: now that we understand how magnets generate their fields, can you please make a short video on EXACTLY how the magnet performs the action of attraction to other Ferro-metals? Thanks again for all you do!!

I was wondering forever, how it works! Thanks you so much for all those great videos!

❤Doc Lincoln Rules. Nicely done closed captions. Love he admits no one knows why electrons are magnetic. In 2023 we have so much to learn about physics.

Now that's what I would call a very magnetic discussion about magnetism Dr. Don! 👍👍

Great explanation. Finally able to follow the whole thing.

While I know I wasn't the only person who asked for this video it still feels like I'm getting a personal response and I'd like to thank you for that, and everything else you do to further all of our understanding of the world around us!

The explanation that I saw on another channel somewhere was the exchange of virtual photons between force-carrying particles (electrons) was causing a transference of momentum from those virtual photons to the emitting electron and the receiving electron, thus either bringing them closer together or pushing them farther apart, and that the summation of all of these exchanges created electromagnetic attraction. This also explains the mechanism behind why magnetically attracted items accelerate towards each other when they get closer. The transfer of virtual photons is something that happens at some distance, and the smaller that distance, the faster the exchange and finally, the more exchanges can occur, increasing the momentum transfer that is accelerating the attracted items together. Same in reverse for repulsive forces acting on two magnetic items that push them away. The example was visualized with two people who are each standing on a boat, throwing items between each other. If they throw a ball from one to the other, the thrower gets pushed away from the catcher by the equal-but-opposite force to the force required to accelerate the ball towards the catcher, and the catcher is pushed away upon catching the ball and absorbing the momentum it had. In the inverse, they are throwing boomerangs away from each other, and it circles around to the backside of the catcher. In that case, the thrower is pushed towards the catcher by the force used to throw the boomerang, and the catcher is similarly pushed towards the thrower by the boomerang when caught. The former example is of magnetic repulsion and the latter of attraction.

Wow this was a great explanation that tied together so many other principles!

Eagerly anticipating a comprehensive video about the NISST ANDT Entrance Exam for career-focused programs featured in the 2-8 December edition of the English Employment News Paper on Page 57. Your perspectives are consistently enlightening!

Dr. Don, so good to see another great video.

The one huge piece I never understood until now was the crystalline fragment enforcing a single orientation. Now things make a whole lot more sense.

Fantastic video, I have always wondered about this.

The best part that I love most is where you say 'No one knows'.

Excelent video Dr. Thank you very much

Feynman has a lot of interviews and such online. One of them explains how magnets work. It's a rather awesome video.

Excellent detailed explanation, both visually and communicating. Thank you sir! On another topic just more of a muse metaphysical thinking, wondering about the math and if there is something with like the 4th spatial dimension and beyond regarding the whys? Also, if there are any fractal like metasubatomic relationships that explain?

Nice, a video on Sheldon Cooper's kindergarten work

Thank you so much for this explanation

i learned a lot. this answers the criteria for how atoms make magnets but does not satisfy the human scale perspective for how do they magically force each other before touching

Don, your videos are some of the most precious intellectual delights I can still have in this World...

For me, magnetic attraction at a distance is the 'magic' part. It's as if invisible arms are reaching out and pulling.

What I draw from all Dr Don’s videos is that a big bloke can also have a big brain, both literally and figuratively! 😊

Excellent. Never quite understood ferromagnetism. Now I do

This was really good. But I'd like to find a video explaining how a magnet and a magnetic substance know that they are in close proximity.

I enjoyed this. In my workshop I have cause screwdrivers to become magnetic by stroking them with a magnet before I use them. This causes the screws do stick to the screwdriver even if I fumble them. Great to know!

Really great video! Thanks!

Very good video. He is one of those people who make KZfaq still worth viewing

3:02 i like that he has the courage to say that nobody knows why the electrone behaves like a magnet on its own the electron has a spin which makes is magnetic, but no one actually knows a whats a spin physically, they can only represent what they measre, so if you want to read about electron you will find a lot a description how does it behave, but what is it - no one knows. i think the biggest issue here is that we should measure what happens inside an electron, but as its an elementary particle it does not have any internal structure, and cannot be probed inside, if if that cannot be measured we might never know the answer.

I’ve have 1 biopolymer coated neodymium implant in each hand, for quite a few years. They vibrate in response to EM fields allowing me to physically feel them. It’s pretty interesting to have another sensory input specifically for that.

On behalf of all the fans of the musical group Insane Clown Posse, I just want to say, this video is miraculous.

Thank you for a great video. I am just wandering about the energy stored in permanent magnets, is it simply the same, similar to the initial energy of the magnetic field used to align the domains? And how long does this energy stay in a permanent magnet?

Thankyou. I have an additional question: when one permanent magnet is placed in the magnetic field of a second permanent magnet, it aligns. Where does the kinetic energy for that alignment come from? It doesn't come from the permanent magnet I assume (or it wouldn't be permanent). Does it only come from the kinetic energy used to move it into the field, creating a field potential that then becomes kinetic energy?

'Yes, but it's more complicated than that...' is what physicists will be saying til the end of time.

that was very cool, can you now do one on the 4 types of magnetism and what they are good for?

A good video to explain how magnet works....I'm structural engineer but very interested in physics

"How do magnets work?" "I dunno. But I do know that you need all this other stuff in order for magnetism to happen."

THANK YOU... PROF.DR. LINCOLN...!!!

This is really interesting video. Thanks

Yay! Another Dr Don video! 😁

OK, this is the best explanation I've heard about permanent magnets. But I have a question no other website/chat room/blog has ever answered. If that bunch of atoms are holding up that paper clip they are doing work. I'd they are doing work they are expending energy. So does the permanent magnet lose its atomic alignment over time? Will my fridge magnets eventually fall off the fridge? Where does that energy come from? Thanks.

thank you Don. Big fan .

Thank god I’ve been waiting for this video. The question stuck in my head for months was “do magnets bend space time”

I would add one thing... Tell which atoms specifically are magnetic. Iron, cobalt, etc. Other than that, great explanation. We just studied this in my science class!

Huh. This explains why metal fillings are magnetic. I'd always thought something about the grinding process somehow made them magnetic (heat + high magnitude force with a distinct vector = teeny tiny magnets?), but it's actually just that grinding metal breaks off bits tiny enough that they were already magnets! Cool.

Wow out of all the youtube videos I've ever watched about this topic, i FINALLY understand it!

ICP: How the f- do magnets work? Fermilab: How does ketchup on hot dogs work?

A few infographics for the crystalline stage would have been a wonderful addition

Sir, is it the domain that is oriented in a particular direction? or the magnetic moments of the domain get aligned in a particular direction? Please respond.

Thanks! They should teach this in secondary science classes. Would you be able to extend the explanation to magnetic field lines?

Title is how do magnets work, and we still don't know how do they work from this video.

The movement of an electron is interesting. "Spin" despite the early experiments needs more thought regarding what possible movements might cause magnetism and how filling the shell prevents the unbalanced magnetic movement.

Superb and concise explanation of what makes a permanent magnet! Also besides artificially making a magnet there are actually natural occurring magnets found in nature as a mineral compound called magnetite (i.e. Lodestone). It is amazing that all these 4 conditions described in the video that must be fulfilled in order to have a permanent magnet are natural occurring in the magnetite mineral!... This material has not to be made a magnet but is a natural permanent magnet. By "permanent," it is meant that the material maintains a magnetic field with no external help.

Logical explanation

Thanks! I was hoping you would explain how magnetism itself works (like the fields themselves and how they do what they do over distance) rather than what magnets are but I learned something either way.

Very nice and straight forward explanation. I was hoping for THE answer to what the magnetic field really is, which like many others, I'm still trying to figure out, and won't quit until I do (or pass away). Most likely it is something so simple that we just can't think of it, and some 5 year old will just point it out as the most obvious thing ever 🙂

thank you for the video

Very interesting. Now please have video on how magnets are made (if that is the right word) in a practical sense for consumer use.

This video is worth to archive the title the Don of science communication.

great video!, can you make video on energy bands in periodic table as well

This video is great and I’m going to start to use it in my classroom. Thanks! If possible, you should do a video on the enigmatic statement “magnetic forces do no work” but explain then how magnets pick things up. Based on other videos published recently in the physics KZfaq space, this would also be very helpful for students studying E&M.

Thank you, Sir.

Maybe a follow up showing the mechanics which draws magnets together.

At 3:27, the answer is given. There is no good explanation for why electrons have magnetic properties, and we have to wait for future discoveries to learn how magnets actually work. The rest is just a very well-explained description of what we know for sure about the resulting phenomenon which is derived from the electron magnetism. The effort to make the video is much appreciated, but I still don't know how magnets actually work - and apparently no one does. Yet.

Hey, this is one of the next lessons we are going to take next semester in my Astronomy course.

"Water, fire, air and dirt, f****** magnets, how do they work?"

How does the magnetic force propagate over distance? Does it work similar to gravity? I have studied some physics at university but never understood how that really worked.

Where does the energy come from to lift something and not be dissipated by age or use? Or do they dissipate?

when i first heard about the Pauli principle in my Atomphysics class it really blew my mind. The universe is magnificent.

So you did great so far, but now can you do it showing how the probability orbital "shapes" interact and influence the magnetic configurations?

If this video doesn't prove that "physics is everything," nothing would. The periodic table, the chart of every chemistry classroom, is shown to have its underlying structure dictated by Dr Don's favorite topic! Thank you for explaining magnets (and for admitting that there's a lot we don't know about them).

Great video Well done 👏

I'd love to see a video on why some/all pulsars are magnetic now.

There is one question I think is important (people have wondered for ages ...)which remains largely unanswered in this video. If we have to make iron magnets by putting them under a very strong magnetic field, in order to align the domains, then how was magnetic iron formed naturally? Already the ancient Greeks knew how to find natural magnets, so, how was this formed? By what kind of natural magnetism?

Is there a relationship between the attraction between positive and negative electrical charges (or repulsion of like charges) and the magnetic force?

Excellent video, thank you! What I would like to know is how two magnets attract or repel each other, not in terms of magnetic field gradients but in terms of fundamental particles. Do they exchange virtual photons?

Thank you very much. Very good explanations. As allways. FEMILAB is super!

When two electrons or two protons are compressed together, the 1/r^3 magnetic energy (positive when magnetic dipoles attract) and the 1/r Coulomb energy (negative when the electric charges repel) can reach a minimum when they are at nuclear distances. Two electrons (Cooper pairs) or two protons (occurs inside neutron stars and perhaps near black holes) can also bind magnetically. The proton and neutron can bind stably by positive magnetic dipole energy (attractive) , positive electric energy (attractive) and negative rotation and vibrations (repulsive or tending to separate them) . It is simple to look up the neutron binding energy and solve for valid configurations and spectrum. Likewise it is simple to solve for proton pairing energy in the context of real nuclear isotopes and reactions. Deuteron, Triton, and many isotopes with magnetic moments. The alpha particle (helium) excited states have multiple configurations and those can be given precise dynamic magnetic interaction energies, orientations and field shapes. The experiments can check it and solved for configurations. It is also possible to bind particles and antiparticle with magnetic dipole (and higher magnetic moments) energy contributions. A proton and antiproton: positive magnetic dipole binding energy, positive Coulomb binding energy, negative rotational binding energy. I am fairly certain there is no singularity if there is not enough rotational energy to reach a bound state. The proton - antiproton (I think) can be massless because the binding energy is gravitationally invisible. Check. The binding energy in mass terms does not contribute to inertia or gravitational mass. A bound particle antiparticle pair can have zero mass with the right rotational and vibrational states. I think that is likely what the neutrinos might be. And the very very very specific orientation and timing required for resonant interactions, is why the cross-section is small. But cross section has a larger meaning of "probability or reaction" than just "probability of collision". It you want to bind two protons, they have narrow orientation (in 3d and time) constraints. If you take an electron and positron and bind them magnetically, they will have a spectrum that can be estimated by "magnetic dipole approximation" which is very close to the non-linear Schrodinger solutions (which can be thought of as solitons or particles). More like molecules than simple particles. The simplicity for screening reactions for economic value or "chemistry at atomic and nuclear energies" is that classical analytical models can be used for getting close enough for the more expensive exact models to converge. I learned that lesson when I was working with Steve Klosko on using measured satellite orbits to calibrate the earth gravitational potential field model. I would find a rough orbit, then he would run the full model and it would most often converge. But if he took the full model and guessed, it would be too expensive or simply not be a good staring point. I think the "full model for nuclear magnetic binding" will adjust for relativistic effects at high particle speeds and intense fields. So the "nonlinear" part of the nonlinear Schrodinger model is likely largely relativistic in nature, and very dependent on the experimental noise spectrum. I wrote to Emilio Segre (antiproton) back about the end of 1980 (his letter back to me is Jan 1981). I was seeking encouragement to spend more time on modeling the orbits and forces on electrons and positrons (positronium), using the precise measurements to test. He basically said, "go ahead and try to do a good job". My take was "you have not said anything stupid, it is possible, just keep at it." Here are some distances for different reactions when the magnetic contribution is 2 MeV. To give a sense of the scale. I am checking all the reaction energies at NUDAT 3 for all ~3500 isotopes. For a given distance PP is stronger then NP, is stronger than NN magnetic bonding energies. That has consequences for stable isotopic internal structure, and indirectly on electron and magnetic binding of partially and fully stripped (of electrons) reactions. I have been looking for "atomic fuels and materials" where the macroscopic bond energy density is KeV and MeV per pair rather than just eV 'chemical' bonds. A rocket fuel would be correspondingly smaller. A 10 KeV material would be about 1000 time smaller than chemical combustion fuels like StarShip. 100 meters of fuel down to 10 cm? Variable Radius Unit Note r_PP_2MeV 0.43585 fm PP Magnetic Binding Energy r_NN_2MeV 0.33868 fm NN Magnetic Binding Energy r_NP_2MeV 0.38420 fm NP Magnetic Binding Energy r_ee_2MeV 32.97970 fm ee Magnetic Binding Energy r_dd_2MeV 0.19835 fm dd Magnetic Binding Energy r_HeHe_2MeV 0.36355 fm HeHe Magnetic Binding Energy r_MuMu_2MeV 0.94318 fm MuMu Magnetic Binding Energy r_TT_2MeV 0.45500 fm TT Magnetic Binding Energy r_eP_2MeV 1.45500 fm eP Magnetic Binding Energy There is a lot of work to find the proper geometries. But the order of magnitudes and possible geometries are a good start. I am using single bonds, but many bonds and types are possible and likely contribute. First you get close, then use more and more precise models. Measure and calibrate to 32 digit accuracy or it won't converge. Boron 11 Neutron Separation Energy 11454221 eV r_B11->B10+N 0.185514604 fm Boron 12 Neutron Separation Energy 3369600 eV r_B12->B11+N 0.318816993 fm (There are end to end magnets, as well as side by side, and many dynamic interactions in 3D and time. End to end allows "strings of particles. And those seem to be operative at gluon energies too. But magnetic chains of a few particles (6 electrons binding?) or 6 neutrons binding in a ring. Those can be solved and likely tested. It is easy "chemistry with KeV and MeV bonds and energies". Then you do the details, measure and test and calibrate.) Richard Collins, The Internet Foundation

Fun fact: We know our planet's magnetic pole flips regularly from observing "zebra stripe" patterns in the polarity of the metals in the seabed parallel to the lines where the crust is being renewed. The polarity of the domains in volcanic material align to the earth's field and are locked in once cooled.

What's always amazed me is how magnets seem to evoke a gravity like force, yet seem to expend no energy, that it, they don't run down like a battery, an electromotive force container.

I already understood all of this; what I did not understand was how magnetic force actually worked. We have been told that gravitational attraction is not actually a force as we know it, but a consequence of Spacetime being warped by the presence of mass. I was hoping for an explanation of magnetic force along similar lines.

Thanks for this, could you do some more to explain why the crystal structure (point 3) could encourage or dis-encourage the alinement's of magnetic atoms please?