What Metal Has the Strongest Magnetic Attraction?

Series Summary

Science describes the method of observation, analysis and discovery to help explain how things work and why things happen in the physical world. Often, the scientific method is used as a reproducible way to analyze experiments, and it includes formulating a question, researching the topic, constructing a hypothesis, experimenting, analyzing the data and drawing a conclusion. This method is taught to children at an early age to aid in problem solving and to get them interested in the world around them. In this free video series on science and nature, a science and math teacher explains a variety of scientific information. Learn about trace fossils, global warming and recycling. Find out about the structure of the atom, the mass and charge of protons and information on isotopes. Learn about the most magnetic metal and the formula for figuring out mass, all with help from a teacher.

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Steve Jones and I'm going to tell you which metals have the best magnetic attraction. Now the whole questions seems to suggest that there is one metal which is better than others and that is in fact generally the case. But all metals actually have some kind of magnetic attractions. And it is a matter of degree. Obviously most metals it's very low and slightly different types. But the best metals for magnetism are ferromagnetic. And probably from seeing this word ferometics used; that would suggest that this is iron based. And iron is the metal which gives the best magnetic attraction. Now not just iron however, you've also got steel because steel contain iron. In fact 96% of steel is usually iron. There are different types of steel but and they contain other things as well. So from the magnetic point of view both iron and steel are magnetic and they are good magnetic materials. Now the reason we would want to have different magnetic materials is some keep the magnetism. So hard steel will keep its magnetism for a long time. Where as soft iron as they call it, surprising name this, soft iron because it is not soft at all actually it is quite hard. Iron is a metal, it is hard. But soft iron is easy to magnetize and easy to demagnetize. But if you want to make yourself a magnet and you want to choose a metal to do it then iron is your metal and soft iron is the best."