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Wires, metal pipes, kitchen utensils: In our everyday experience, copper is not attracted to magnets.Still many strange experiment It shows that copper behaves a little strangely around magnetic fields. what happened? Is copper magnetic? And how can it interact with magnets?
It turns out that all elements are magnetic. The metals we normally think of as magnetic (iron, nickel, cobalt) are a special class of elements known as ferromagnets, which interact particularly strongly with magnetic fields to create permanent magnets.
However, there are some other types that are weaker. magneticSaid michael coy, Emeritus Professor of Physics at Trinity College, Dublin. Most elements are either paramagnetic or diamagnetic. “With a paramagnetic material, when you apply a magnetic field, it creates a very small magnetization in the direction of that field,” he said. This means that the element is slightly attracted to the magnet, but the effect is temporary and disappears as soon as the magnet is removed.
“For diamagnetic materials, when you apply a magnetic field, you get a smaller magnetization in the opposite direction of the field,” Coy told Live Science. This creates a small repulsive force on the magnet, which also disappears when the magnetic field is removed. Therefore, under everyday conditions, you would never notice that paramagnetic and diamagnetic materials have magnetic properties.
Copper is an example of a diamagnetic material, but it is unclear which category exactly the element falls into. electronic. These negatively charged particles orbit around the central core of the atomic nucleus. atom It lies in defined layers called shells, which are further divided into levels called s-, d-, and p-orbitals.
Related: Why does copper turn green?
Regarding the metal in the center, periodic table, the s orbital is already filled with two electrons, and moving from left to right through the row, the d orbital is gradually filled with up to 10 electrons. When the orbitals are filled, the electrons are forced into pairs, which determines the magnetic properties of the element. Elements with more unpaired electrons are paramagnetic, and elements with more paired electrons are diamagnetic.
Each electron also has a strange quantum property called spin. The direction of all electron spins in an atom (up or down) defines the magnetic strength. “When different electrons align their spins in parallel, [in the same direction]Atoms have a magnetic moment,” Coy said. “However, if an electron aligns its spin antiparallel, [in opposite directions], the magnetic moments cancel out. ”
Since copper is in position 9, we would expect it to have 2 electrons in the s orbital and 9 electrons in the d orbital. But unusually, copper takes one electron out of the full s orbital and instead completely fills the d orbital. This means that all the d electrons are in pairs, with an equal number spinning up and down. Therefore, there is no magnetic moment and therefore no magnetic behavior is observed under normal conditions.
However, this unusual configuration means that copper can interact with magnets in another very important way. Magnetism is closely related to electricity, a phenomenon explained in physics by Lenz’s law.
“Essentially, a changing magnetic field induces an electric current in the conductor,” he said. ernesto bosquet, a physicist at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Florida. “Copper has very low electrical resistance, so current flows through it very easily. [it]. ”
It is the unpaired electrons that make copper an excellent conductor. This effect, known as electromagnetic induction, is central to today’s methods of generating electricity. “The stator is essentially a series of rotating insulated wires that move around a core. It can be used as a motor or a generator,” Bosquet told his Live Science in an email. The same idea works in reverse. When a current is passed through a coil of wire, a magnetic field is created within the metal core, creating an electromagnet.
Despite not being ferromagnetic, copper’s ability to interact with magnets allows us to power electronic devices, store data on hard drives, and even slow down roller coasters. It’s something I use every day.
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