How do magnets work? Seriously.

[Pappa]

I've tried several times to get my head around this witchcraft, but I just can't fathom it. Wikipedia seemed a good place to start, but that just confused me more. Does anybody know?

[pErvinalia]

Nup. It's all tied in with electric fields - hence electromagnetism. Tides go in, tides go out. You can't explain that.

[Scott1328]

Well when a mommy magnet, and a daddy magnet love each other very much, sometimes they like to get really close to each other...

[FBM]

Well when a mommy magnet, and a daddy magnet love each other very much, sometimes they like to get really close to each other...

But what if both of them have poles?

[Rum]

Nobody here knows. Therefore god!! Yayy!

[laklak]

Fucking magic, innit?

[cronus]

Strings. Invisible strings with hooks on the end.

[Svartalf]

Poqitive sstrings have holes while negatives have hooks.

[Robert_S]

It's a motherfucking miracle!!!

Birth is also a motherfucking miracle!

Therefore invisible microscopic storks migrate along the lines of the electromagnetic field. These magnostorks are very OCD when it comes to metals, especially iron which they arrange in patterns. Also, if you wave a copper wire across their path, they will drop baby electrons in it, creating electricity.

[cronus]

Trigger Warning!!!1! :

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Electromagnetic fields. That's where they grow them. I think you can also use window boxes.

[HomerJay]

It's something to do with rubbing yourself against animals.

Vegetables don't work.

You get Animal Magnetism but I never heard of Vegetable Magnetism.

Although beetroot has a lot of iron in it?

[mistermack]

I've tried several times to get my head around this witchcraft, but I just can't fathom it. Wikipedia seemed a good place to start, but that just confused me more. Does anybody know?

I have a feeling that the answer is no.

Depends what you mean by how does it work. It's operation can be described in great detail, and the maths is all there. But what it is that they are describing, what IS a magnetic field, I don't think anyone actually knows.
The description is sort of circular. A magnetic field is a volume of space that has a property of exerting force on other magnetic fields, even in a vacuum, and through that, on physical objects tied in to each field.
That's how I IMAGINE it, but it's probably bollocks.
But it probably works because empty space isn't actually empty. One magnet produces an excited state in the quantum field surrounding it, which is modeled as a magnetic field. So does another, and it's through the quantum field that the forces are transmitted between the two.
Again, probably bollocks.

[Mysturji]

It's what happens when photons get stuck in a loop, apparently. To understand it, you need to tilt your head through a 4th dimension.
But seriously, I've been asking that question since RDF and I've never got a satisfactory answer.
It's magic, innit?

[Animavore]

The photon is the interactive particle of electro-magnetism. A magnetic-field is an area in which photons are being exchanged between one object and the next. When two object carrying the same charge repel it is said to be like two ice-skaters throwing a bowling ball back and forth to each other as they skate. They will be pushed further and further apart with each throw. When objects of opposite charges come together it's like two ice-skaters tugging on a rope.

Or something. It's a long time since I've read a physics books, I tend more toward biology/geology.