Tuesday 18th May 2021
Magnetic Attraction: a History and Description of Magnetism
From prehistory to the modern day magnetism has fascinated mankind. Since Thales first written discovery of the properties of lodestone, the Chinese invention of the compass needle to magnetic recording magnetism has played an important role in technology. Despite this importance, a theory that explains fully magnetism requires the complexities of not just an understanding of electromagnetism but in addition the complexities of the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics, both of which were only discovered in the twentieth century.
The first half of this talk will be devoted to the history of magnetism from the ancients right up to the present day. Following this will be an informative but easy-to-follow description of what magnetism actually is which will include some examples from technology.
