Two articles recently carried in The Physics Teacher have included discussions of “refrigerator magnets.” These articles have been informative, and I would like to add the simple analogy of a horseshoe magnet to the discussion. After all, a horseshoe magnet is a “one-sided” magnet in that it has the effective part of its field only on the end where the poles are, whereas the end with the U-bend provides little useful magnetic force.
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© 2000 American Association of Physics Teachers.
2000
American Association of Physics Teachers
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