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Timbo asked in Science & MathematicsPhysics · 1 decade ago

Is it possible to magnetize a steel ball so that all the 'South' poles are in the center ?

This is something I've been pondering over for years!

Is it possible to magnetize a steel ball, say a 1/2" diameter ball-bearing, so that all the 'North' poles act outwards from the surface and all the 'South' poles act inwards towards the center ? And if it could be done, would it act like a magnetic monopole ? What would it do, how would it behave in the presence of other magnetic fields ?

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  • 1 decade ago
    Favorite Answer

    I don't think you could get ALL of the S domains pointing radially at the center, but you could probably get SOME of them to do do.

    Imagine that you have very strong rare-earth magnets shaped like tiny hexagons and pentagons.

    You could build a 'soccer ball' out of them, with a strong enough glue. Assume you glue them to a solid iron soccer ball shape to make a solid shape

    Assume you have some slightly larger hexes and penta-shaped magnets such that they fit perfectly over the slightly larger result, and so on, so that you are building a many-layered form with all of the S-faces inwards, so that the net magnetic force is radial, in and out.

    When its big enough, gently machine (so you don't break the glue or heat away the magnetism) the result so that it is spherical.

    Voila.

  • 5 years ago

    Assuming this is a theoretical question and that you are not so daft as not to know it's as hot as hell down there(not too far off the temperature at the surface of the sun) and that atmospheric air will mess up your theoretical experiment the situation is this..If an object is dropped into a cylindrical hole through the centre of a cold dead atmosphere free planet in space then the object will accelerate toward the centre and on passing the centre it will decelerate until it reaches the opposite surface where it's velocity will be zero and it will then reverse the process exactly,and so on indefinitely.After all,where will the energy be lost?

  • 1 decade ago

    The total magnetic flux through any closed surface is always zero, consider a spher inside your steel ball centred on the balls centre, there is flux passing into this surface from all sides and no flux leaving and therefor the total flux is non zero. So no it would not be possible.

  • 1 decade ago

    Since B fields have 0 divergence, no, it would not be possible. That being said, if you do it and it works, you'll be famous.

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