Paperclips Start Over Again in a New Universe

How the Strength of a Magnet Varies with Temperature

Abstract

Physicists sometimes report thing under extreme conditions. For example, think of the emptiness of interstellar infinite vs. the unimaginable crush of pressure at the center of a neutron star, or an object dipped in liquid nitrogen vs. the tiles on the space shuttle during re-entry. Here's an experiment on permanent magnets in "farthermost kitchen" conditions that y'all can attempt at home.

Summary

Average (6-x days)

None

A kit is available from our partner Habitation Science Tools. See the Materials department for details.

Low ($20 - $l)

Adult supervision highly recommended. Apply proper caution when transferring or property magnets at farthermost temperatures. See the Process for details.

Sabine De Brabandere, PhD, Science Buddies
Andrew Olson, Ph.D., Scientific discipline Buddies

Sources

This project is based on:

• Iverson, A.A., 2004. Does the Temperature of a Magnet Affect Its Forcefulness? California State Science Fair Abstract. Retrieved September 21, 2006.
• Hoadley, R., date unknown. Magnet Basics: What Affects the Strength of Magnets? Magnet Human being. Retrieved September 21, 2006.

Recommended Project Supplies

Get the correct supplies — selected and tested to piece of work with this project.

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Objective

The objective of this project is to decide whether the temperature of a magnet affects its strength.

Introduction

Magnets are fascinating; they are fun to play with and tin can even create artistic creations. Figure i, below, gives you a glimpse of what you tin can expect during this science projection.

Scientists need magnets that function in extreme weather condition, like in the cold emptiness of infinite. In our day-to-day life, magnets experience more-moderate extremes, like the freezing winter temperatures in Alaska or the unbearable heat of a summertime mean solar day in Death Valley, California. Would a magnet yet role well in those weather?

It is important to note there are several types of magnets. This science project only deals with permanent magnets, magnets that always retain their magnetic characteristics. In other words, they always create a magnetic force (magnetic pull or push) on magnetic cloth in their vicinity. Practice you call up these magnets are ever permanent, or are there exceptions at extreme temperatures?

In everyday linguistic communication, we unremarkably refer to magnets, and materials that are attracted to magnets, as magnetic. Technically, these materials are chosen ferromagnetic. Not all metals are ferromagnetic. Endeavor to pick upward a copper penny or a piece of aluminum foil with your magnet. Does it work? The most mutual ferromagnetic metals are iron, nickel, and cobalt. They are special considering at the microscopic level, they contain many tiny magnetic domains. Each magnetic domain is like a tiny magnet with a north and south pole. Normally, the tiny magnetic forces created in those domains point randomly in all directions, so they cancel each other out, and as a result the textile will not exert a magnetic push or pull on other ferromagnetic materials. However, when the textile is placed in a stiff magnetic field, the material gets magnetized, and all of these tiny magnetic fields line up, creating an overall larger magnetic field, as illustrated in Figure 2, beneath. To acquire even more about magnets, check out the Science Buddies Electricity, Magnetism, & Electromagnetism Tutorial.

At present, what would happen if you lot heated up the magnet? Scientists define the temperature of a material every bit a measure of random move of atoms or molecules (the tiny particles the cloth is made of) within the material. Even when you see a solid block of metallic, the atoms within this solid block are constantly vibrating back and forth. They move a footling less when the block is cold, and a fiddling more when the block is warm. Because heating up the cake increases the random move inside the metal, would it also impact the alignment of magnetic domains? If and then, an increase in the temperature of a magnet would tend to decrease its strength. In fact, each ferromagnetic material has a Curie temperature (named afterward Pierre Curie), to a higher place which it can no longer be magnetized. For some metals, like iron, the Curie temperature is over ane,300°C! Your oven at habitation might become as hot as 260°C, so evidently 1,300°C is out of the question for a scientific discipline projection. Only what happens to the force of a magnet over a more approachable range of temperatures, like from the temperature of your freezer (about −xx°C) to the temperature of humid water (+100°C)? In this scientific discipline projection, you will discover out.

Terms and Concepts

• Permanent magnets
• Magnetic force
• Ferromagnetic materials
• Magnetic domain
• Temperature
• Equilibrate

More than avant-garde students may also want to written report:

• Diamagnetic materials
• Paramagnetic materials

Questions

• What is an object'southward temperature really a mensurate of?
• What happens on an diminutive level when yous oestrus upwards a substance?
• How could heating up or cooling down a magnet affect the alignment of its magnetic domains?
• How could yous mensurate the strength of a magnet?

Bibliography

• NDT Education Resources Heart. (n.d.). Magnetic Domains. Non-Destructive Testing Resources Center, Collaboration for NDT Instruction. Retrieved September 21, 2006.
• Costello, Thou. (2008, February). Measuring Temperature, Mass, Volume, and Density. Retrieved October 6, 2014.
• Nave, C.R. (n.d.). The Curie Temperature. HyperPhysics, Departments of Physics and Astronomy, Georgia State Academy. Retrieved September 21, 2006.
• Scientific discipline Buddies. (2014, Nov). Electricity, Magnetism, and Electromagnetism Tutorial. Scientific discipline Buddies. Retrieved November 3, 2004.

Materials and Equipment

• Magnetism and Temperature Kit, bachelor from our partner Dwelling Science Tools. Kit includes:
  • Large ceramic ring magnet; 4 ½ inch diameter
  • Digital calibration with 0.one one thousand increments
  • Modest metal paperclips (2000)
  • Thermometer
• Yous volition also demand these items, non included in the kit:
  • Tongs for belongings magnets (preferably plastic)
  • Thick heat-resistant glove or oven mitts that fit over your hands (not pot holders)
  • Flat surface or plate at to the lowest degree 2 inches wider than the diameter of your magnet
  • Small bowl or container, to exist used as a "measuring gunkhole" in which to collect paper clips and measure out their weight
  • Freezer
  • Ice cubes (about 3 trays worth)
  • Large plastic bowl (your magnet needs to fit in the basin)
  • Water
  • Stove or hot plate for heating water
  • Pot in which to heat water. Choose a pot that is not ferromagnetic so your magnet is not attracted to the pot. Your magnet needs to fit completely into the pot.
  • Lab notebook

Disclaimer: Science Buddies participates in chapter programs with Domicile Scientific discipline Tools, Amazon.com, Carolina Biological, and Jameco Electronics. Proceeds from the affiliate programs help support Science Buddies, a 501(c)(three) public charity, and keep our resource free for everyone. Our top priority is student learning. If you lot have any comments (positive or negative) related to purchases you lot've fabricated for science projects from recommendations on our site, delight allow us know. Write to us at scibuddy@sciencebuddies.org.

Experimental Procedure

Preparing Your Piece of work Area and Tools

Caution: Here are some full general condom guidelines you should read before you do this project.

1. Always use tongs or thick, insulated gloves for handling magnets at farthermost temperatures.
2. Practice handling the magnet using tongs and thick, insulated gloves at room temperature earlier heating or cooling your magnet.

1. Yous will test your magnet at iv different temperatures:
   1. Approximately −twenty °C (the temperature of your freezer)
   2. 0°C (the temperature of a water water ice bath)
   3. Approximately xx °C (room temperature)
   4. 100 °C (the temperature of boiling h2o)
2. Yous will employ the amount of paper clips that the magnet tin pick up as a measure of its force.
   1. Because your magnet might option up quite a few paper clips, you lot will not count the number of clips, but will employ their total mass, expressed in grams (yard) as your unit of measurement of measurement.
3. Copy the following information table in your lab notebook. It will be used to record your measurements.

4. Do measuring the forcefulness of the magnet:
   1. It is of import to perform exactly the aforementioned procedure for each trial. You will practice and optimize your procedure in this pace.
   2. With your magnet at room temperature, follow the procedure described in Measuring the Magnet Strength, below, and mensurate the magnet strength (the corporeality of newspaper clips picked upwardly) a couple of times. Note that small variations in your measured results are to be expected. Scientists call these statistical fluctuations. Your job is to pay attending to means you might introduce variations and find ways to eliminate those equally much as possible.
   3. Here some ideas of ways you might introduce variations to get you started:
      1. Bringing the magnet downwardly sideways for one trial and apartment for another introduces variations in your measurements. Bring the magnet downwards the same style each time.
      2. Picking the magnet upward with insulated gloves for some trials and bare hands for others can innovate variations in your measurements. You might push off more than newspaper clips when using insulated gloves. Utilize your gloves for all trials, even the trials at room temperature.
      3. Different ways of piling the newspaper clips can innovate variations in your measurement. Create a flat-peak pile—at to the lowest degree 2.5 cm (approximately one inch) wider than your magnet—for each trial.
5. Once y'all feel confident that you can make reliable measurements, go to the section Taking Measurements at Diverse Temperatures, below.

Measuring the Magnet Strength

1. Create a pile of newspaper clips like the ane shown in Figure 3, below. You tin can do this on a flat surface (as in Figure 3) or on a plate (as tin be seen in Effigy 4, beneath). The pile needs to be at least 1 inch wider than your magnet on each side of the magnet. Make sure the top of the pile of newspaper clips is flat.

2. With your insulated gloves on, agree your magnet to a higher place the pile.
3. Lower the magnet down slowly until it rests in the middle of the pile of paper clips, as shown in Figure 4, below.

4. At present, slowly remove the magnet from the pile. Ideally, y'all should not add or remove any paperclips stuck on the magnet with this motion. It is ok, though, if you need to push off some paper clips that are stuck to the magnet to remove the magnet from the pile, or to pinch off additional newspaper clips, equally long as you brand sure you lot use the same movements with every measurement. Try not to option up actress newspaper clips that are non stuck to the magnet though.
5. Zip out your scale and then it indicates 0 g when the container you are using to measure (your measuring gunkhole) is on the scale. Tip: If the scale y'all are using does not take a feature to zero it out, you will need to get-go counterbalance the measuring boat and so that you can decrease this mass from the total when you counterbalance the newspaper clips.
6. Remove all the paper clips picked up by the magnet from your magnet and gather them in your measuring boat. Tip: If not all the paper clips fit in your measuring gunkhole, mensurate half of the clips, than measure the second half and add up the results.
7. Record the mass picked upwardly by the magnet in your lab notebook.

Taking Measurements at Various Temperatures

Important: I more note before yous offset your measurements at unlike temperatures. Whenever you absurd or heat your magnet to a desired temperature, it is very important to allow the magnet to equilibrate to the test temperature before measuring the magnet's force at that temperature. Give the magnet at least 20 minutes to attain a compatible temperature when it is immersed in water and 30 minutes when information technology is in open air. This will ensure that not only the surface, but also the inner cadre of the metallic, attains the desired temperature. The Introduction (run across section on domains) will give you a inkling on why this is so important.

Freezer Test

1. Place your magnet in the freezer for nigh 30 minutes.
2. Place your thermometer in the freezer.
3. Prepare your pile of newspaper clips as described in the section Measuring the Magnet Force.
4. Take the magnet out, mensurate its force (every bit described in the section Measuring the Magnet Strength) and put information technology instantly dorsum where you lot got it from for this test so it is set up for your next trial.
5. Exit your magnet for at least 10 minutes to equilibrate with the test temperature again.
6. Repeat steps 3–5 iv more than times for a total of five trials.
7. Take your thermometer out of the freezer and tape the temperature of your freezer in the data tabular array in your lab notebook. Take your magnet out of the freezer.

Ice/Water Bath Examination

8. In a large plastic bowl, prepare a bath of h2o and water ice cubes.
9. Identify your magnet in the bowl. Brand certain information technology is completely submerged.
10. Exit it in the ice/h2o bath for at least xx minutes, evaluating intermittently if the bathroom needs extra ice. Note: Since the room is warmer than your water ice/water bathroom, heat volition flow from the room to the bath, melting your ice. To proceed the temperature of the bath at 0°C, you might need to furnish the water ice.
11. Repeat steps three–six. While you practice then, go along an heart on the water ice/water bathroom, making sure it always contains some ice.
12. Use your thermometer to measure the temperature of the water ice/h2o bath and tape your findings in your data table. Take your magnet out of the water/ice bathroom.

Room-Temperature Test

13. Let your magnet and thermometer sit out at room temperature for at to the lowest degree 30 minutes.
14. Repeat steps 3–6. Note: In this case, you practice not need the additional ten minutes betwixt trials, as the magnet stays at room temperature all the time.
15. Employ your thermometer to measure the room temperature and record your findings in your data table in your lab notebook.

Boiling Water Test

16. Put a pot with plenty of h2o on the stove and bring it to a soft boil.
17. Use tongs to put the magnet in the water. You lot will also use the tongs to take the magnet out of the water. Leave the magnet in the h2o for at to the lowest degree twenty minutes to equilibrate.
18. Repeat steps 3–half dozen. While y'all do then, keep the water at a soft boil.
19. Apply your thermometer to measure the temperature of the boiling water and record your findings in your data tabular array in your lab notebook. Take the magnet out of the water, permit the water cool and safely dispose it.
20. You are finished measuring and tin start analyzing your results.

Analyzing Your Data

1. For each temperature, summate the boilerplate mass the magnet picked upward. You do this by calculation the masses picked up by the magnet for Trial 1, Trial 2, Trial iii, Trial four, and Trial five for a given Temperature (e.1000. freezer temperature) and separate this full by the number of trials, here 5. Record the average in the terminal line of your data table.
2. Make a graph of magnetic strength, equally measured past mass picked upwards (y-axis, the vertical centrality), vs. temperature (x-axis, the horizontal axis).
   1. Tip:You lot tin can make a graph by hand or make a graph using a computer program, such as Create a Graph, and impress it out.
3. Wait at your information table and graph, and try to draw conclusions from your results.
   1. Does magnetic strength increase, decrease, or stay the same over the temperature range y'all tested?
   2. Can you explain these results with what you learned about ferromagnetic materials in the Introduction?
   3. Could you conclude your tested magnet will all the same function properly under extreme kitchen temperatures? Would it be safe to extrapolate these findings to more than mutual sizes of ceramic kitchen magnets?

Troubleshooting

For troubleshooting tips, please read our FAQ: How the Strength of a Magnet Varies with Temperature.

Ask an Skillful

Do y'all have specific questions virtually your science project? Our team of volunteer scientists tin can help. Our Experts won't do the piece of work for you, just they volition make suggestions, offering guidance, and assist yous troubleshoot.

Variations

• Compare the temperature dependence of magnets made of different materials (eastward.g., neodymium vs. ceramic). Practice background inquiry to find the Curie temperature and normal operating temperature range for each type of magnet y'all exam. Note: Boosted safety precautions are required when handling neodymium magnets. Encounter the warnings in the project Apply Super-strong Magnets to Make a Simple Motor for details.
• Here are some other Science Buddies projects related to magnetism:
  • For a more than bones project, see The Strength of an Electromagnet.
  • For a slightly harder project, see Man-Powered Energy.
  • You might also be interested in Spare-Alter Circus: Walking Coins on a (Vertical!) 'Loftier Wire'.
  • Finally, for a more advanced project, check out either Measuring Magnetic Fields or Recording on a Wire.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q: Why practise my measurements vary? My magnet seems to pick up different amounts of paper clips for each measurement, even if I keep the magnet at the aforementioned temperature.

A: Variations in your measurements are normal. Even if the strength of the magnet at a specific temperature is constant, the measured mass of paper clips picked upward by the magnet will vary from trial to trial. These variations are mainly caused past slight changes in how y'all perform the measurements. If you think near it, will the newspaper clips always be in exactly the same position equally you lower the magnet? Could that influence how many the magnet picks upward? Will you always hold the magnet exactly the aforementioned manner, and could that influence how many are picked up? These small changes effect in a unlike number of paper clips beingness picked up by the magnet, or in other words, varying measurements.

Although y'all cannot eliminate these variations, you can do your all-time to reduce them. Here are some tips:

• Exercise your measurement procedure and while you do and then, look for details that might influence your measurement. Exist certain to include these details in your measurement procedure (see next indicate).
• Write down a articulate measurement procedure. Y'all might exist surprised how like shooting fish in a barrel it is to forget details like whether or not you kept your hand on the magnet when the magnet rested on the newspaper clips. A written detailed procedure will clarify any doubts.
• Utilise the aforementioned materials for each measurement: the aforementioned heat-resistant glove or oven mitts, the same scale and measuring boat, et cetera.

Once you have reduced the variations as much as possible, the following steps can assist you find a trend and increment your conviction in an accurate average measurement:

• Do not compare individual measurements of magnet strengths at different temperatures. Calculate averages first so try to see a trend in the boilerplate values. As a comparison, to observe a tendency in peak of showtime- and second-grade students, would you blindly choice a first grader and compare this person'south pinnacle to the height of one randomly picked second grader? No, because there is a chance you picked an exceptionally tall starting time grader or a relatively minor second grader. The average of the height of a sample of first graders and the average of a sample of 2d graders would give you a improve thought of the general summit and trend. The same is true for your magnet forcefulness measurements; trends are easier to spot in the average values.
• Make a larger number of repeated measurements; this will generate an average that is, in general, closer to the true value. The procedure asks for five trials, but you could increment it to eight or ten measurements at each temperature. To empathize this bespeak, call back well-nigh how it would impact the average height information of showtime- and second-grade students. An average of the heights of students of a class, or even several classes, volition generally provide a more than trustworthy boilerplate than an average of the heights of only five students.

Q: I await to run into a trend in my boilerplate values, simply I cannot see 1. Am I doing something wrong?

A: Equally a first footstep, evaluate if you lot immune plenty time for the magnet to learn the examination temperature throughout (not just at the surface, but all the way to the middle of the magnet material) earlier measuring the magnet'south forcefulness at that temperature. Did you give the magnet at least xx minutes to reach a uniform temperature when information technology is immersed in water and 30 minutes when information technology is in open up air? Did you place your magnet back in the freezer, ice water, or boiling h2o between measurements? Did your water ice h2o always have ice in it?

If you did, the effect might exist smaller than your measurement accuracy. The question on varying measurements might assistance you take more than authentic measurements.

Y'all could also increase the temperature range over which you take measurements. An oven tin can help you lot heat the magnet to higher temperatures. If you do so, exist sure to stay well within the temperature range for which your magnet was stabilized. When you expose your magnet to farthermost temperatures (cold as well as warm), it volition get damaged and bear witness permanent loss. The question on reversible and permanent loss and the caption of what can weaken your magnet will help you empathise this amend.

Q: I have read about permanent and reversible loss in magnet force due to temperature variations. What is the difference?

A: When you oestrus a magnet, its strength can decrease. This is chosen a loss in magnet forcefulness, or demagnetization of the magnet. There are two distinct cases. If after bringing it dorsum to normal conditions, the magnet returns to its original strength, the loss is called reversible. If after bringing it back to normal conditions, the magnet strength is just partially recovered, scientists speak most permanent loss. A manufacturer is normally able to undo the permanent loss, but special treatment of the magnet is needed to regain its original strength. With reversible loss, it automatically regains its strength when brought back to normal conditions.

Call up of a safety band. If you stretch information technology a little, information technology volition return to its original shape, the stretch was reversible. If you lot stretch it a lot, information technology might shrink once more but it volition remain longer than it originally was, the stretch is permanent.

You are studying reversible loss in this science project.

Q: My magnet suddenly seems much weaker. What happened?

A: Here are a couple of reasons that could explain your ascertainment:

• Did you lot heat or cool your magnet to farthermost temperatures? Exposure to extreme temperatures (like putting it on dry ice or heating it to over 400°F) tin can cause permanent loss in magnet strength. The previous question explains the difference between reversible and permanent loss.
  If your magnet acquired permanent loss, this experiment might help yous sympathise permanent and reversible loss better. Accept new measurements with the weaker magnet and use only the new values to explore reversible loss. You can likewise compare the measurements before the exposure to farthermost temperatures to the measurements after the exposure to explore permanent loss. It is important to call up non to combine measurements from before the exposure to measurements taken after the exposure. Information technology is like combining measurements of two different magnets.
• Other (less probable) factors that affect magnet strength are storage or holding it close to other stiff magnets. A soft drop of a recently manufactured magnet will well-nigh frequently not crusade a loss in strength, merely hard drops might. If any of these utilize, follow the solution offered under extreme temperature exposure.
• You might exist observing variations in your measurements, or y'all might have unknowingly inverse your measurement procedure slightly. The question on varying measurements can help you understand variations in your measurements amend, and provide ideas on how to reduce them every bit much as possible.

Q: The magnet specifications states it is "temperature stabilized." Can I notwithstanding apply this magnet for this project?

A: Yes, you should use a temperature-stabilized magnet for this scientific discipline project.

Temperature-stabilized magnets are less prone to show permanent loss in magnet force when repeatedly heated. Reversible loss (the loss y'all study in this projection) is not eliminated past magnet stabilization. The question on permanent and reversible loss explains the difference between these two types of loss in magnet strength.

Careers

If you lot like this project, you might enjoy exploring these related careers:

Career Contour

What makes it possible to create high-technology objects like computers and sports gear? It'southward the materials inside those products. Materials scientists and engineers develop materials, like metals, ceramics, polymers, and composites, that other engineers demand for their designs. Materials scientists and engineers call up atomically (meaning they understand things at the nanoscale level), simply they blueprint microscopically (at the level of a microscope), and their materials are used macroscopically… Read more than

Career Contour

Physicists have a large goal in mind—to empathise the nature of the entire universe and everything in information technology! To reach that goal, they observe and measure natural events seen on Earth and in the universe, and so develop theories, using mathematics, to explicate why those phenomena occur. Physicists take on the challenge of explaining events that happen on the grandest scale imaginable to those that happen at the level of the smallest diminutive particles. Their theories are and so applied to… Read more

If you lot have purchased a kit for this project from Science Buddies, we are pleased to answer any question not addressed by the FAQ above.

In your electronic mail, delight follow these instructions:

1. What is your Science Buddies kit order number?
2. Delight depict how yous need help as thoroughly equally possible:

   Examples

   Good Question I'k trying to do Experimental Process footstep #5, "Scrape the insulation from the wire. . ." How do I know when I've scraped enough?
   Good Question I'm at Experimental Procedure step #vii, "Move the magnet back and along . . ." and the LED is not lighting up.
   Bad Question I don't sympathise the instructions. Help!
   Good Question I am purchasing my materials. Tin I substitute a 1N34 diode for the 1N25 diode called for in the material listing?
   Bad Question Tin I use a unlike office?

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Science Buddies Staff. "How the Strength of a Magnet Varies with Temperature." Scientific discipline Buddies, 3 June 2021, https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project-ideas/Phys_p025/physics/how-the-strength-of-a-magnet-varies-with-temperature. Accessed 18 May 2022.

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Science Buddies Staff. (2021, June iii). How the Strength of a Magnet Varies with Temperature. Retrieved from https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project-ideas/Phys_p025/physics/how-the-forcefulness-of-a-magnet-varies-with-temperature

Concluding edit appointment: 2021-06-03

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