WHAT IS THE ATTRACTION BETWEEN MAGNETS?
A magnet is surrounded by magnetic flux lines that are the magnetic field. The stronger a magnet the greater number of flux lines it has and the further they extend from the magnet. These flux lines are not uniformly spaced from the magnet with their density increasing closer to the magnet. When two magnets approach each other there are really three magnets. There are the two individual magnets where the flux line run from the north pole of the individual magnet to the south pole and there is a third magnet where the flux lines run from the north pole of one magnet to the south pole of the other magnet. The attraction between two magnets is the result of the combined flux lines not the flux lines of the individual magnets. The flux lines try to have as short a length as possible so when the flux lines of the two individual amgnets intersect they combine shortening their total length and this creates the third magnet. THE EXPERIMENT Using the steel block we could not determine the stren
