Woah... is this for real? How did I not know this?!
(specifically, dipole "South" at the "North Pole")
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from attie@chaos.social
@attie Well yes, that's why your north pole of your compass is attracted to it.
(Oddly I've just been reading a 1920s physics text book that made the same point)
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from penguin42@mastodon.org.uk
@penguin42 I don't know why, but I always thought that compasses had the poles mis-marked, so that they'd "Point North" which was "Pointing to the North Pole" (i.e: the South Pole, but that detail was hidden), not "Pointing to the 'North Pole', which is magnetically the South Pole" 😵
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from attie@chaos.social
@attie ...it does also occasionally (on a geologic timescale) change: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_reversal
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from galaxis@mastodon.infra.de
@attie Have you never noticed that when you put two magnets together, they will be attracted if their opposite poles face each other (N →← S) and not their identical poles (N ←→ N)?
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from TritTriton@shelter.moe
@TritTriton Of course! ... but I always thought that the "North Pole" was actually Earth's north, and that compasses were mis-labelled for "usability" or something 🫣
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from attie@chaos.social
@attie Same for me until quite recently, in fact.
I wonder how they know that the Northern magnetic pole is actually the South one: just because the N pole of the magnets and compasses face towards it?
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from TritTriton@shelter.moe This content has been proxied by September (ba2dc).Proxy Information
text/gemini