For anyone whose magnet related memories are not filled with various line illustrations of the forces, that’s probably it.
And even though my head is full of those illustrations, I don’t seem to understand how the iron fillings and ferrofluids make the shapes they do instead of just sticking to the magnet. And I am too lazy to do the maths to make myself understand.
Except that imagining fields (not forces, if I’m thinking of the same illustrations as you) as lines is very very far from how deep it goes. Throughout physics education, most ppl go through several iterations of thinking you finally understand magnetism, then realizing you really fucking don’t, as it’s more complicated than you were taught previously.
Am physicist, unfathomable invisible being reaching out to attract random shit together is my best understanding of magnets anyway.
For anyone whose magnet related memories are not filled with various line illustrations of the forces, that’s probably it.
And even though my head is full of those illustrations, I don’t seem to understand how the iron fillings and ferrofluids make the shapes they do instead of just sticking to the magnet. And I am too lazy to do the maths to make myself understand.
Except that imagining fields (not forces, if I’m thinking of the same illustrations as you) as lines is very very far from how deep it goes. Throughout physics education, most ppl go through several iterations of thinking you finally understand magnetism, then realizing you really fucking don’t, as it’s more complicated than you were taught previously.