Magnetism

The book I read to research this post was Magnetism A Very Short Introduction by Stephen J Blundell which is an excellent book which I bought from kindle. I think is intended as an introduction to magnetism but does go in a lot of detail and I enjoyed reading it. Magnetism was discovered a thousand years ago in China when it was discovered that a rock called magnetite was naturally magnetic and it was used in compasses. At first it was thought it pointed to celestial north but later it was discovered it points to a magnetic north pole north of Canada. The Earth is like a huge but weak magnet complete with its own electric field. An experiment many school children do in school is sprinkle iron fillings around a magnet and it shows the magnetic field of the magnet. Magnet is connected to electricity for example if you wrap wire around the right kind of metal you can turn it into an electro magnet which only works when electricity is passed through it. All magnets have a north and south pole but it is thought that with the research at the Hadron Collider that single pole magnets are expected to be found. This is a kind of huge underground cylindrical tunnel where charged particles are sent around at high speed and experiments on the basic composition of matter are done.