Making a Magnet for Dummies

nail electromagnet

We see a lot of interesting takes on all manner of subjects here at the Antisocial Network. Some of them are clearly written by people who've walked the walk and can now talk the talk. Those aren't candidates for the DotD award, mostly because they weren't written by dumbasses. On the other hand, however, there are the posts that our staffers recognize – sometimes within a few words – were written from a position of ignorance. The Kendra Dahlstrom post "How to Magnetize Metal," now appearing at SFGate.com, fits quite neatly in that second category...

Dahlstrom's opening line is a dead giveaway that she was more interested in her stipend than in being accurate. Would someone who actually knows how to magnetize metal open with the flowery and, frankly, nonsensical,

"A magnet is a neat scientific anomaly"?

Yeah, magnets are neat. In fact they're essential to darned near everything in the modern world: you need magnets to generate electricity, after all. But an "anomaly"? Hell to the no, Kendra! Dahlstom's ignorance of the science explaining magnetism pops up next, with this surprisingly inept theory of what causes magnetism:

"Magnetic attraction is caused by the positive and negative atom particles in an object to line up all together. When the negative and positive particles stay on their designated side, they are polarized. "

WTF are these "atom particles," anyway? Unfortunately, Leaf Group excised Kendra's reference list when they moved the post from eHow.com to Hunker.com to SFGate, which is truly sad because we can't determine whether she found someone else contributing to the stupidification of the internet, or dreamed it up on her own. Whatever... Dahlstrom comes up with two ways to magnetize metal: her first is to

"Rub the metal you want to magnetize in one direction over the existing magnet. This is the quickest way to magnetize metal. It causes the non magnetized metal to polarize and turn into a magnet."

Indeed, this works, although the science isn't exactly what Kendra describes 😁.
Next, she wants her readers to make an electromagnet (apparently she hadn't heard of the "hit-the-rod-with-a-hammer method). To do so, one must

1. Grab 2 pieces of copper wire...
2. Wrap copper wire around the metal nail... You should have enough wire to have at least a couple of feet left after coiling around the nail.
3. Set up a 9 volt battery and wrap the free end of each wire around the battery terminals.
4. ...your nail... is now an electromagnet.

Why two pieces, Kendra? And if you're only wrapping one wire around your nail, what do you do with the other wire? Don't you finish with three or even four free ends? Oh, and thanks for informing us that "The terminals are the small round metal circles that stick out from the end of a 9 volt battery": we might not have known, otherwise. Just kidding: no one here is stupid enough to be the Dumbass of the Day, more than we can say for Kendra!

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SI - MAGNETS