How do magnets work? Seriously.

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Tero
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Re: How do magnets work? Seriously.

Post by Tero » Wed Mar 26, 2014 2:40 am

It is certainly true that it's fallacious to insist that what applies within a system applies to the system itself (fallacy of composition), but it's equally fallacious to insist that it doesn't.

what??!!

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Re: How do magnets work? Seriously.

Post by JimC » Wed Mar 26, 2014 2:52 am

hackenslash wrote:
Scumple wrote:Energy is a very human-centric notion. I doubt it is very likely to help in a precise and accurate description of the cosmos at large. I'd like to abandon terms that can be related to human experience when describing the universe. If biology can achieve this with genetics and still be a massively informative discipline then it should be possible with physics and its numerous observations. And that way something progressive might come with regards unifying the large and small systems approach to the universe?
It's actually quite a robust concept, and extremely useful, but incredibly well-understood, at least by physicists.

I was tempted earlier to slightly critique the section Pappa found helpful, but decided not to, because I didn't want to muddy the waters and because it was only minor niggles I had with it, largely centred around the language.

Energy is the ability to perform work, rather than being equivalent to work, work is the application of force, and force is the equalisation of differentials.

That was all, really.
I shall quibble.

Work is an application of force over a given displacement, and its magnitude is the dot product of those two vector quantities...
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Re: How do magnets work? Seriously.

Post by pErvinalia » Wed Mar 26, 2014 3:10 am

Geek fight!!
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Re: How do magnets work? Seriously.

Post by hackenslash » Wed Mar 26, 2014 4:10 am

JimC wrote:
hackenslash wrote:
Scumple wrote:Energy is a very human-centric notion. I doubt it is very likely to help in a precise and accurate description of the cosmos at large. I'd like to abandon terms that can be related to human experience when describing the universe. If biology can achieve this with genetics and still be a massively informative discipline then it should be possible with physics and its numerous observations. And that way something progressive might come with regards unifying the large and small systems approach to the universe?
It's actually quite a robust concept, and extremely useful, but incredibly well-understood, at least by physicists.

I was tempted earlier to slightly critique the section Pappa found helpful, but decided not to, because I didn't want to muddy the waters and because it was only minor niggles I had with it, largely centred around the language.

Energy is the ability to perform work, rather than being equivalent to work, work is the application of force, and force is the equalisation of differentials.

That was all, really.
I shall quibble.

Work is an application of force over a given displacement, and its magnitude is the dot product of those two vector quantities...
Not much of a quibble, more of an expansion. Coolio.
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Re: How do magnets work? Seriously.

Post by hackenslash » Wed Mar 26, 2014 4:11 am

Tero wrote:
It is certainly true that it's fallacious to insist that what applies within a system applies to the system itself (fallacy of composition), but it's equally fallacious to insist that it doesn't.

what??!!
Any conclusion is equally fallacious.
Dogma is the death of the intellect

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Re: How do magnets work? Seriously.

Post by rainbow » Wed Mar 26, 2014 10:28 am

hackenslash wrote:
Tero wrote:
It is certainly true that it's fallacious to insist that what applies within a system applies to the system itself (fallacy of composition), but it's equally fallacious to insist that it doesn't.

Any conclusion is equally fallacious.
Is that your conclusion?
I call bullshit - Alfred E Einstein
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Re: How do magnets work? Seriously.

Post by pErvinalia » Wed Mar 26, 2014 10:31 am

And will there be fellatio?
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Re: How do magnets work? Seriously.

Post by Pappa » Wed Mar 26, 2014 5:38 pm

It's funny. I have no problem understanding cosmology and quantum mechanics. I read and understood The Elegant Universe, A Brief History of Time and others. But fucking magnets.

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Re: How do magnets work? Seriously.

Post by hackenslash » Wed Mar 26, 2014 6:02 pm

rainbow wrote:
hackenslash wrote:
Tero wrote:
It is certainly true that it's fallacious to insist that what applies within a system applies to the system itself (fallacy of composition), but it's equally fallacious to insist that it doesn't.

Any conclusion is equally fallacious.
Is that your conclusion?
It isn't a conclusion regarding the point in question.
Dogma is the death of the intellect

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Re: How do magnets work? Seriously.

Post by pErvinalia » Thu Mar 27, 2014 12:02 am

Pappa wrote:It's funny. I have no problem understanding cosmology and quantum mechanics. I read and understood The Elegant Universe, A Brief History of Time and others. But fucking magnets.
I tried to explain waves (the ocean kind) the other day to my 7 and 5 yr old. That was a challenge.. :hehe:
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Re: How do magnets work? Seriously.

Post by JimC » Thu Mar 27, 2014 12:19 am

rEvolutionist wrote:
Pappa wrote:It's funny. I have no problem understanding cosmology and quantum mechanics. I read and understood The Elegant Universe, A Brief History of Time and others. But fucking magnets.
I tried to explain waves (the ocean kind) the other day to my 7 and 5 yr old. That was a challenge.. :hehe:
A bath-tub, and a length of wood to move up and down would be a good start...

I always use a ripple tank with my physics students...
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Re: How do magnets work? Seriously.

Post by pErvinalia » Thu Mar 27, 2014 12:33 am

We were driving back from the coast in a car. No props available... :o
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Re: How do magnets work? Seriously.

Post by Tero » Thu Mar 27, 2014 1:03 am

Pappa wrote:It's funny. I have no problem understanding cosmology and quantum mechanics. I read and understood The Elegant Universe, A Brief History of Time and others. But fucking magnets.
It's the atoms. They have lonely electrons. If those lonely electrons have erections in the same direction, you get a magnetic field.

Bringing two magnets together produces motion, work. If you reverse the polarity(see penis above) they repel. You can reverse it in eg electric motors. This is the cycles of AC current. We use it to run motors.
Last edited by Tero on Thu Mar 27, 2014 1:06 am, edited 3 times in total.

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Re: How do magnets work? Seriously.

Post by pErvinalia » Thu Mar 27, 2014 1:05 am

"ekectrons"... "penis"... "usevit"... :hehe:
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"Socialized medicine is just exactly as morally defensible as gassing and cooking Jews" - Seth. Yes, he really did say that..
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Re: How do magnets work? Seriously.

Post by Tero » Thu Mar 27, 2014 2:07 am

Hey I fixed it! I'm on a phone in Mexico.

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