I believe it is possible to magnatise an object by hitting it, as this can arrange the crystals inside it in the pattern required for magnatism. But I think you have to hit it with a magnetic object to begin with. Or perhaps no; you can demagnetise an object by hitting.
Nothing to do with ley lines. I've seen it done with steel packaging strips. The effect is quite weak and orientation has no effect.
Get your pal to demonstrate, but using identical thin nails or bits of strip steel. Then have him try it at 90 degrees to the ley line. It works just the same.
In fact it's hard to STOP steel becoming slightly magnetised if you beat on it with a hammer. The type of steel does have a big effect though. Mild, relatively soft high carbon steel is best. High tensile or stainless won't work.
Get your pal to demonstrate, but using identical thin nails or bits of strip steel. Then have him try it at 90 degrees to the ley line. It works just the same.
In fact it's hard to STOP steel becoming slightly magnetised if you beat on it with a hammer. The type of steel does have a big effect though. Mild, relatively soft high carbon steel is best. High tensile or stainless won't work.
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MRC_Hans
Penultimate Amazing
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It is ley lines, and no, they don't exist. It is, however, possible to change the magnetic properties of a piece of steel by mechanical impact. Usually hitting it with a hammer wil make it less magnetic, but a piece of steel, especially a tool like a screwdriver, which had often been exposed to various magnetic fields, may contain several magnetized areas, which may more or less cancel out. Reset one of them by striking it with a hammer, and you might experience increased magnetism.
In other words, you friend is using a perfectly common observation as an argument for the existence of ley lines.
The whole thing is, of course, perfectly testable.
Hans
In other words, you friend is using a perfectly common observation as an argument for the existence of ley lines.
The whole thing is, of course, perfectly testable.
Hans
Asolepius
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I remember from school that you just have to line up the steel with the earth's magnetic field, not ley lines which of course don't exist. I think the effect is that you will get the piece magnetised whatever the orientation, but if it's along the long axis then it's more detectable. Works better with steel than with pure iron. The converse of course is that you should not bang proper magnets about as this weakens them.
I tried to demagnetize a neodymium magnet by smacking it with a hammer, but it shattered, so don't try this at home, people!
Heating metal above its Curie temperature will demagnetize it completely. As it cools it will (I presume) assume a degree of magnetisation due to the Earth's field, but that will be so weak as to be undetectable without instruments. The same is true of igneous rock, hence palaeomagnetism and the initial confirmation of Plate Tectonics, which is far more interesting than ley line nonsense.
Mind you, on leys- if you find a copy of Watkins' "The Old Straight Track" its worth a read. Not nearly so daft as the stuff people have bolted onto the theory since.
Heating metal above its Curie temperature will demagnetize it completely. As it cools it will (I presume) assume a degree of magnetisation due to the Earth's field, but that will be so weak as to be undetectable without instruments. The same is true of igneous rock, hence palaeomagnetism and the initial confirmation of Plate Tectonics, which is far more interesting than ley line nonsense.
Mind you, on leys- if you find a copy of Watkins' "The Old Straight Track" its worth a read. Not nearly so daft as the stuff people have bolted onto the theory since.
The magnetic properties of metals such as iron, nickel and cobalt have to do with the arrangement of groups of atoms called 'domains'. If they 'line up' relative to each other, they will exhibit magnetic properties.
Striking it should jumble them up randomly. I don't see how striking metal could magnetize it at all, much as shaking a box of coins could have them all land as heads. The only way I could imagine it happening would be if you loosened the atoms briefly through a strike (or, more realistically, through heat) and had the metal sitting over a rather strong magnet.
Just trying to get the picture straight in my head.
Athon
Striking it should jumble them up randomly. I don't see how striking metal could magnetize it at all, much as shaking a box of coins could have them all land as heads. The only way I could imagine it happening would be if you loosened the atoms briefly through a strike (or, more realistically, through heat) and had the metal sitting over a rather strong magnet.
Just trying to get the picture straight in my head.
Athon
OK, I'm a jeweler and I am not in the business of striking steel, but I do have ocassion to strike sterling silver and gold. And when you strike these metals, the atoms don't get "jumbled up", they tighten quite a lot. We call it "work hardening". If you get too carried away the metal will become so brittle it will crack. In order to sort of "loosen up" those atoms, you have to anneal the metal by heating it. So it makes sense to me that striking steel could place these atoms you are talking about closer together. Maybe that's how it works? 
pgwenthold
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Isn't steel a 3D crystal? If so, how can you "line up" with the earth's magentic field?
I remeber this experiment from seventh grade. You line up the screwdriver with the tip pointing magnetic north and smack it soundly from the rear causing it to fly off northwards. The explanation our science teacher gave was the smack aligned the atoms slightly in the direction of travel. I don't know if north/south alignement is required or not, but I do know it works. The field is pretty weak, though enough to pick up nails. Any piece of steel will work fine, nothing needs to be magnetic at the start.
pgwenthold
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I am not questioning whether you can magnetize steel by hitting it. I am asking what the purpose of "aligning" the screwdriver would be since (AFAIK) steel is an isotropic 3D lattice. The only difference in the x,y, and z directions in a screwdriver are the lengths of the lattice.
Iamme trying to envision what school is like these days. A room full of students...hammers in hand...beating steel to a pulp...listening to someone across the room go, "I did it...I DID IT!"...while others are going, "HOW did you do it? Nothing happens for ME." I can just see it like a vision.
OK, I'm a jeweler and I am not in the business of striking steel, but I do have ocassion to strike sterling silver and gold. And when you strike these metals, the atoms don't get "jumbled up", they tighten quite a lot. We call it "work hardening". If you get too carried away the metal will become so brittle it will crack. In order to sort of "loosen up" those atoms, you have to anneal the metal by heating it. So it makes sense to me that striking steel could place these atoms you are talking about closer together. Maybe that's how it works?
What you say makes sense for soft metals as obviously if you were to let's say fold the metal then hit it, you could compress it to a size that would resemble a piece not folded...or a piece 1/2 the size. I wonder what a gold ring would look like if you put it on the railroad tracks? I know what a penny looks like that way because I used to do that.
Iamme, just for the sake of accuracy, no, you would not reduce the size to half the size by folding the metal and hammering on it. If I start out with a piece of 6 gauge silver wire and forge it into a bracelet, it doesn't start getting smaller and smaller. The metal hardens and of course I can control the shape to some extent and cause it to flatten, for instance. I don't know the correct scientific mechanism, but the atoms sort of get smashed together and the metal (while perhaps becoming very slightly smaller) changes in it's hardness.
If you put a gold ring on a rail and let a train go over it, wow, you have a lot more money than I do!
(I can see doing it with pennies though.) My guess is you will end up with a very flat and very brittle piece of gold, provided it doesn't just get knocked off the track.
If you put a gold ring on a rail and let a train go over it, wow, you have a lot more money than I do!
(I can see doing it with pennies though.) My guess is you will end up with a very flat and very brittle piece of gold, provided it doesn't just get knocked off the track.Iamme, just for the sake of accuracy, no, you would not reduce the size to half the size by folding the metal and hammering on it. If I start out with a piece of 6 gauge silver wire and forge it into a bracelet, it doesn't start getting smaller and smaller. The metal hardens and of course I can control the shape to some extent and cause it to flatten, for instance. I don't know the correct scientific mechanism, but the atoms sort of get smashed together and the metal (while perhaps becoming very slightly smaller) changes in it's hardness.
If you put a gold ring on a rail and let a train go over it, wow, you have a lot more money than I do!
I should have thought to add that when folding the gold in half, that then this woud be placed in a mold of the same size, so that when you took a X-ton press and pressed down on it, the size could not swell outward. That it would have to compress. (It WOULD compress...wouldn't it?)
Schneibster
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If you do it with a penny on a real railroad track, you'll wind up with a very thin copper plating on the track. On the other hand, if you just put it on the trolley tracks, you might be able to get it off afterward.
The magnetism effect probably proceeds by alignment of the domains due to motion of the struck object through the Earth's magnetic field; they would tend to "fall into" the orientation of the Earth's field both as a result of being struck and as a result of moving through it while they were in flux due to the impact. On a permanent magnet, however, the effects that would tend to disarrange the domains would dominate over the effects tending to align them, because the Earth's field is far weaker than the field the permanent magnet was subjected to to magnetize it. Thus, striking a permanent magnet repeatedly in the absence of a strong magnetic field will tend to demagnetize it.
The point about heating a permanent magnet is also correct; it disarranges the domains, and unless the material is subjected to a strong magnetic field as it cools, it will come out demagnetized except for the weak residual field due to the Earth's magnetic field. While it is hot, it will not be magnetic at all. For every material, there is a characteristic temperature above which the magnetism disappears, called the "Curie point" and named after it's discoverer, Pierre, the husband of the famous nuclear physics researcher from the early 20th century.
The magnetism effect probably proceeds by alignment of the domains due to motion of the struck object through the Earth's magnetic field; they would tend to "fall into" the orientation of the Earth's field both as a result of being struck and as a result of moving through it while they were in flux due to the impact. On a permanent magnet, however, the effects that would tend to disarrange the domains would dominate over the effects tending to align them, because the Earth's field is far weaker than the field the permanent magnet was subjected to to magnetize it. Thus, striking a permanent magnet repeatedly in the absence of a strong magnetic field will tend to demagnetize it.
The point about heating a permanent magnet is also correct; it disarranges the domains, and unless the material is subjected to a strong magnetic field as it cools, it will come out demagnetized except for the weak residual field due to the Earth's magnetic field. While it is hot, it will not be magnetic at all. For every material, there is a characteristic temperature above which the magnetism disappears, called the "Curie point" and named after it's discoverer, Pierre, the husband of the famous nuclear physics researcher from the early 20th century.
SezMe
post-pre-born
Aw, c'mon. I've done this probably 20-30 times (when my kids were, well, kids, we lived not far from some railroad tracks). The end result has always been that I can't find the penny or that it ends up near where I put it and is a thin sheet about twice its original diameter. You can still see some of the orginal penny embossing. I have NEVER seen the penny plate onto the track.
Schneibster
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Huh, we did it several times on a set of tracks behind my house, and we never found anything but a very thin red smear on the tracks. You had to be circumspect; the guys running the train were understandably uptight about anyone messing with anything, and they'd send some guys down in an electric rail maintenance car if they saw you messing with anything- and those guys had a really bad reputation. So you got the penny on there before the train showed up, and waited until it was out of sight before you went to check up on things. Maybe we just never found any of them.
SezMe
post-pre-born
Hey, Schneibster, here is great chance to engage in skepticism and evidence gathering. I'll go down to my local train station and try it again. I've never been hassled before but we always did it discreetly. I'll try to get some digital pics (before and after) and see what comes up. Can you do the same? Does the outcome depend on the train speed (obviously slow near the station but faster elsewhere)?
This promises to be fun.
This promises to be fun.