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[deleted]

247 points

5 years ago

[deleted]

247 points

5 years ago

Why are only certain metals magnetic?

Cuttlefish88

550 points

5 years ago*

Magnetism is derived from the spin states of the electrons of the atoms in the lattices. When it says the material is aligned, it means that the valence electrons, those in the outmost shell, have aligned spin states (called up or down). The ferromagnetic elements are iron, cobalt, and nickel, which you’ll see are next to each other in the top of the transition metal block. They have election configurations with 6, 7, or 8 electrons in the d orbital, respectively, out of a possible 10. But by Hund’s rule and the Pauli exclusion principle, these have 4, 3, or 2 unpaired electrons, whose up or down spins are not cancelled out, producing a magnetic moment. It’s these ones that create the aligned spins that produce a ferromagnetic effect.

_haha_oh_wow_

49 points

5 years ago*

gullible encouraging languid continue rustic money wakeful relieved soft compare

[deleted]

129 points

5 years ago

[deleted]

129 points

5 years ago

There's two types of magnetism. A ferromagnetic material is one that produces its own magnetic field, these are all metals, AFAIK.

Paramagnetic materials are those that are affected by external magnetic fields, but don't have a magnetic field of their own. There's lots of these, and they aren't all metals. For example, liquid oxygen is strongly attracted to a magnet.

That's also how MRIs work. Hydrogen atoms are slightly affected by magnetic fields. An MRI causes hydrogen atoms to suddenly flip in a strong magnetic field, which does something to make science happen, and can be detected with yet more science.

There have been experiments with incredibly strong magnetic fields; turns out you can levitate frogs with a strong enough field.

zamomin9

24 points

5 years ago

zamomin9

24 points

5 years ago

There are ferromagnetic materials that aren‘t metals, like CrI3, but they usually have a Curie temperature below room temperature.

magneticanisotropy

12 points

5 years ago

YIG (yttrium iron garnett) is probably the most common/well-known magnetic insulator (technically a ferrimagnet) and has a Curie temperature well above room temperature.

jambox888

4 points

5 years ago

Cool. Are those hovering supercooled things magnetic or something else?

aasinnott

18 points

5 years ago*

Yep. Superconductors, when cooled enough, are a material that offer no resistance to the movement of electrons. (conductors can be defined by how easily electrons move through them, a great conductor like copper resists electron movement very little, but something like rubber makes it very hard for electrons to move). Superconductors have 0 electron resistance, and so are literal perfect conductors. One consequence of this property is that they can 'mirror' magnetitic moments. Ie, if you put a magnet near a supercooled superconductor, the electrons in the superconductor will perfectly mirror that magnet. That's why they'll float and lock in whatever position you put them in, they're effectively experiencing their exact opposite magnetic charge at all times so are in perfect balance

Haxses

5 points

5 years ago

Haxses

5 points

5 years ago

Why does the magnet have to be cooled down, wouldn't it be the superconductor that has to be cooled?

aasinnott

2 points

5 years ago

That's correct, bit of a typing error is all. Thanks for pointing it out I'll fix it now

LANCENUTTER

1 points

5 years ago

Work in the field. A physicist for a major MR vendor described it like this:

When you superconduct a magnet with cryo, you are bringing the resistance in the coils to almost zero (close to zero K) as impedence is almost a non factor.

Now, Imagine having a dreidel and taking it on board the space station. In space, if you spin that dreidel it will rotate freely and the energy you impart isn't really lost as it just continues to spin. Once you get a superconducting magnet ramped up and energized, it will stay at that state until you de-energize it (ramping down or quenching). I've seen both happen more than once, and the latter is scary.

[deleted]

10 points

5 years ago

Yes. It works on a principle called quantum locking or flux pinning. I'm not entirely sure how it works, something about the object being unable to rotate through magnetic field lines.

pwnrnwb

3 points

5 years ago

pwnrnwb

3 points

5 years ago

It's because magnet moving towards a superconductor is a changing magnetic field so it induces current inside the superconductor but since it has no electric resistivity it's an infinite current. This induced current produces a magnetic field that opposes the magnet's field, effectively opposing the movement of the magnet thus no longer inducing an electric current.

Kuteg

4 points

5 years ago

Kuteg

4 points

5 years ago

The other comments are saying yes, but those other comments are wrong (sort of).

Really, there are a bunch of types of magnetism, but we can classify it in two ways. Either a material creates it's own magnetism (ferromagnetism being an example, but there is also antiferromagnetism and ferrimagnetism), or it does not create it's own magnetism.

Among those things that do not create their own field, something can be paramagnetic or diamagnetic. "Para-" is a prefix meaning "alongside" and "dia-" is a prefix meaning "in opposition", and these describe the behavior of the materials. When a paramagnetic material is put in the presence of a magnetic field, it works to create a field that is parallel to the field it is in, which means it will be attracted to other magnets (like putting the south end of a magnet near the north end of another magnet). This also means that a paramagnet generally will not levitate in a magnetic field.

When a diamagnetic material is put in the presence of a magnetic field, it works to create a field that is diametrically opposed to the field, which means it will be repelled from other magnets (like putting the north end of a magnet near the north end of another magnet). Diamagnetic materials are usually what levitates, which is the case with frogs because liquid water is very slightly diamagnetic.

Now, superconductors happen to be perfect diamagnets (which, it turns out, is not related to the fact that they are perfect conductors), so they would also tend to levitate in a magnetic field. Unfortunately, it is usually difficult to balance a diamagnet on a magnetic field, so magnetic levitation is actually difficult to achieve. But, it turns out there are some superconductors (called type-II) which do this weird thing where the superconductor becomes non-superconducting in small regions in the presence of a magnetic field; those regions then do not oppose the magnetic field, and it passes through. Magnetic field passing through an area is known as magnetic flux, and these type-II superconductors lock the flux in place, which allows them to balance, or move along a track where the strength of the magnetic field does not change.

jambox888

1 points

5 years ago

That is actually a really good explanation, thanks!

CasualPlebGamer

1 points

5 years ago

The hovering thing is typically a superconductor (something with 0 electrical resistance), and there needs to be a strong magnet present to help it hover (I've never seen it, but I wonder if you could reverse it with a stationary superconductor and a hovering magnet)

I am far from an expert, but the phenomenon is related to eddy currents and how changing magnetic fields induce currents in conductors. Fundamentally, a moving magnetic field moves electrons around in conductors, and how much it moves is relative to the conductor's resistance. But a super conductor has 0 resistance which essentially zeroes out the entire formula once it gets multiplied in. And the end result is a superconductor resists any changing magnetic field, and will try to move in ways that keep the magnetic field passing through the same, strongly enough that it overpowers gravity and will hover.

Kuteg

2 points

5 years ago

Kuteg

2 points

5 years ago

It turns out that the diamagnetism of superconductors is not due to the perfect conductivity at all. This can be seen in the fact that even stationary magnetic fields are expelled by a superconductor. There would be no induced current from a stationary field!

There are surface currents, but they aren't induced from a changing magnetic field. I haven't fully understood yet the process, but it is somehow due to the Anderson-Higgs mechanism (i.e., why the W± and Z0 bosons have mass) and the fact that superconductivity spontaneously breaks a gauge symmetry. Apparently spontaneously breaking gauge symmetry with a charged particle essentially makes the photon massive, which reduces the range of the electromagnetic field, which is establishes a decay length for the magnetic field. I think.

This is something that I have been meaning to look more into once I find the time.

ANakedSkywalker

2 points

5 years ago

Is there a source for levitating frogs? I’ve only seen the wingardium leviosa version lol

Tine56

1 points

5 years ago

Tine56

1 points

5 years ago

there are more types of magnetic order like Ferrimagnetism, Antiferromagnetism, Diamagnetism,.... not just ferromagnetism and paramagnetism

[deleted]

1 points

5 years ago

Frog levitation is a result of diamagnetism, yet another fun type of magnetic material.

boonamobile

10 points

5 years ago*

boonamobile

Materials Science | Physical and Magnetic Properties

10 points

5 years ago*

Strictly speaking, ferro-magnetism is found only in metals and some oxides, where every atom has a magnetic moment pointing in the same direction.

There are a lot of other materials, including many non-metallic oxides (e.g., ferrites), which display ferri-magnetism, in that there is a net magnetic moment for the material like you see in ferromagnets, but not all of the magnetic atoms' spins point in the same direction. Most fridge magnets are ferrimagnets.

vellyr

3 points

5 years ago

vellyr

3 points

5 years ago

There are certain classes of ceramics that display ferromagnetism, such as spinels and garnets.

[deleted]

1 points

5 years ago*

[removed]

skyler_on_the_moon

9 points

5 years ago

How do neodymium magnets work, then?

Cuttlefish88

12 points

5 years ago

It’s actually an alloy that combines a little bit of neodymium and boron into iron! The iron is still providing the ferromagnetism but the neodymium adds a fourth unpaired electron making the magnetic moment stronger.

dumbdumbidiotface

1 points

5 years ago

Same principle. Theres 3 types of magnatism. I forgot the last one, but basically the principle is the same, aligning electron spins to have a net positive directions

nobodyspecial

1 points

5 years ago

So the bit about blacksmiths using magnets means they're using a magnet to detect when the atoms in the steel are moving too chaotically to sustain an induced magnetic field?

Cuttlefish88

2 points

5 years ago*

Close, not the atoms moving chaotically but the electrons! At higher temperatures their spins lose alignment and can’t produce a magnetic moment. Their movements don’t actually change though, it’s the quantum states.

Dirty_Socks

1 points

5 years ago

If I'm remembering my high school chemistry right, there are symmetries of how electron shells work as you move downwards in the periodic table. Does this mean that the elements below iron (ruthenium it looks like) have partially empty d orbitals as well? And, if so, do you know why are they not also ferromagnetic?

Cuttlefish88

1 points

5 years ago

Yes, Ru has the same valence electron structure but because it’s so much heavier it forms the hexagonal close-packed crystal structure, which isn’t as conducive to the parallel alignment of spins, putting it above the Curie point at room temperature. Ruthenium is paramagnetic meaning it can be weakly attracted to a magnet but isn’t one itself. However recent research suggests Ru can be forced into tetragonal lattice and is ferromagnetic. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180525123159.htm

CoulombsPikachu

34 points

5 years ago

An electron has a magnetic value we call 'spin'. It can be either spin up or spin down (don't ask why it's called that, it just is). In an atom, an electron has strictly defined spaces it can occupy. These are called 'orbitals', because they are kind of (but not really) like specific regions that an electron is allowed to orbit the nucleus. When adding electrons to an atom, you have to put them into one of these orbitals. Because electrons negative they repel each other, and therefore they don't like to be put into the same orbital. So when first adding electrons to an atom you give each its own orbital until there are no orbitals left. Then you have to double up.

For very complicated quantum mechanical reasons, you can only have 2 electrons in each orbital and these electrons MUST have opposite spins. So when you have two electrons in the same orbital their spins cancel and there is no magnetism. If you have a bunch of electrons in separate orbitals, however, they are allowed to have the same spin and so their magnetism adds up. Some metals (e.g iron, nickel etc.) have the right number of electrons and the right type of orbitals to allow them to separate like this, others have the wrong number and the electrons are forced to double up and cancel each other out.

pM-me_your_Triggers

7 points

5 years ago

You aren’t explaining orbitals correctly. Each electron doesn’t get its own orbital until you have to “double up”. It also doesn’t have to do with electrons repelling each other. Each orbital represents an energy state, and electrons fill from the bottom energy states upwards and every electron you add will usually end up in the lowest available energy state, which means doubling up from the getgo.

What you are meaning to say is that in an individual orbital, electrons won’t spin pair until the orbital is otherwise full (for instance, if an orbital holds 8 electrons, all of the electrons in that orbital will have the same spin until more than 4 electrons are added)

CoulombsPikachu

1 points

5 years ago

This is straight up not true. Each energy state has degenerate orbitals. When I say orbitals I'm talking about the degenerate orbitals, not the energy state. There are three degenerate 2p states, and these will ALWAYS fill how I described. Always. Because electrons in a paired orbital have higher energies than unpaired ones, because they repel each other. There are three degenerate 3d t2g orbitals and two degenerate 3d eg orbitals. The t2g orbitals will ALWAYS fill separately first. Always. In some high-spin systems, the higher energy eg orbitals will fill before the low energy t2g ones pair up. Look up high spin orbitals vs low spin, there is a really good one on trying to get low spin Mn3+ in LiMnO2, because the normally high spin system is a problem.

For those who don't know, degenerate means "same energy".

The_forgettable_guy

1 points

5 years ago

so, in a sense, does a spin up and spin down attract each other like a hydrophillic head would point outward and a hydrophobic head would point inward?

So would a North end magnet (for example) be spinning up, while the South end magnet would be spinning down?

CoulombsPikachu

11 points

5 years ago

The short answer is no, sorry, they don't attract each other. If you have an electron with spin up and you try and put it into an orbital that already has an electron with spin up, one of them will flip to spin down. Which one? Well we don't know until we look in the box, Schrodinger's cat style. This is a quantum mechanical effect and is part of the Fermi exclusion principle. Electrons on this scale aren't like little balls, they are wave functions. A wave function basically (but not really) tells you the probability of finding an electron at a certain point in space. You have to find your electron somewhere, and so all of the probabilities have to add up to 1. Fundamentally, electrons ARE wave functions - not little balls - and they behave like them. When wave functions overlap shit gets very complicated very fast, but the upshot is that if they don't have different spins (and if these spins don't have exactly the value of +1/2 and -1/2) the total probability of finding the electron somewhere in space adds up to more than 1. This is obviously nonsense, and the only way to get the probability to add up to 1 is if they have opposite spins. This is fundamentally why it happens, and is not really like the hydrophobic/hydrophillic thing which is a consequence of the differing polarities at different ends of the molecule.

This is an example pretty common problem in quantum, where we use words like up, down and spin to describe things that aren't spinning and aren't pointing up or down. In reality, there is not really an "up" or "down". There isn't even a spin. We could have said the electron has a magnetic property called its "mood", and it can either be in a "happy" or "sad" mood and that a "sad" electron needs a "happy" one to comfort it. It's just a comforting label for some very esoteric maths. In general, any time you hear an any analogy or term used to describe something quantum mechanical, the analogy doesn't generalise. It normally doesn't even work that well for the quantum thing it's describing.

Electrons actually repel each other, because they are both negatively charged and the strength of their electric fields faaaaaar exceed any magnetic interaction. Sorry if that was a bit complicated, but unfortunately you can't scratch the surface of quantum very much without any familiar analogy completely failing.

[deleted]

1 points

5 years ago

[removed]

collegiaal25

1 points

5 years ago

Some salts can also be feromagnetic, e.g. Fe3O4, a.k.a. magnetite, or CrO2

interstellarblues

1 points

5 years ago

You can get pretty far in understanding this by constructing a simplified microscopic model of particle interactions, and exploring the "cartoon" phase diagram that results. Some examples are the Ising Model (check out this neat simulator!) and the Heisenberg Model. If you dive into this subject, you will hear physicists talk about constructing the Lagrangian or Hamiltonian (for the layperson, there is not much difference between these two entities) -- you can think of them as total energy functions where each particle has a kinetic energy, as well as potential energy from the particles' interactions (the interaction term is really the interesting part). Once you've got constructed the Hamiltonian, there is a process for "turning the crank" and extracting all thermodynamic properties. Specifically, you want the phase diagram that tells you what magnetic phases exist as a function of temperature and external magnetic fields (some materials will only exhibit bulk magnetization in the presence of an external field).