[meteorite-list] NOT MAGNETISM (Was magnetism)+ (Was Pasamonte...)

From: David Freeman <dfreeman_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue Sep 7 16:28:24 2004
Message-ID: <413E19FE.2050001_at_fascination.com>

Mmm.....well, when I go for a drive next time, I'll be very sure to take
a good compass to help in my magnetic search, and to double check the
bottom of my car and 4 wheeler to see how many of your magnetic
meteorites and other magnetic rocks are stuck to my suspension! It is
bad enough to pay a high price for fuel without transporting a whole
bunch of rocks stuck to my car frame.

FOR SALE: DAVE'S METEORITE DETECTOR KIT.
1 COMPASS
1 PAPER CLIP ON STRING WITH SAFETY PIN
1 PAPER NAME TAG FOR MOM TO WRITE NAME ON.
1 SACK OF STALE BREAD FOR LEAVING CRUMBS TO HELP LOCATE ONESELF
IN THE BLURRY TIME OF MAGNETIC STREWNFIELDS!

That must explain how the Nevada Magnetite strewn field was discovered
over 5 miles away! The compass told them! ;-)

Kits available at Denver Show.
Dave (with the string thing)

MexicoDoug_at_aol.com wrote:

>Hola Dave, Hey what gives. Of course your 1500 passive
>meteorite hunters are confused to high heaven. Because you
>are fighting a battle with more than the National Inquirer and
>the Sun to censure the accepted definition of magnetic in the
>American Heritage Dictionary. Magnetic, magnetism, and
> magnetic properties are interchangeable words in accepted use
>as I have done, but not for your purposes. So consider you
>may be the one confused, not the whole rest of the world,
>before demanding how English is spoken.
>
>Then you dumped yout cast iron engine block on my head to
>clarify my correct use of the word magnetic which you said
>was "NOT CORRECT". All I was talking about was a little piece
>of hematite! Then you said hematite is not magnetic, nor was
>non-magnetized lodestone magnetic. But my Peterson Field
>Guide to Rocks and Minerals says hematite is magnetic, and so
>does my Smithsonian Handbook of Rocks and Minerals say it can
>be; and my piece of hematite I am holding in my hand which
>started this whole thing isn't lying. Let me quote the
>hematite from Peterson:
>
>"Usually even red grains are slightly magnetic.", (and then,
>when heated)..."becomes darker and strongly magnetic."
>
>Smithsonian: "This mineral may become magnetic when heated."
>And interestingly the Audubon guide says it's "lack of
>magnetism distinguishes it(hematite) from magnetite."
>
>I agree that normally hematite as found is normally weakly
>magnetic at best, or perhaps not magnetic at all ... that was
>precisely my original point you leached onto and had me
>clarify!
>
>And if we read page 42 of the Audubon Society Field Guide to
>North American Rocks and Minerals, we find a statement that is
>quite in sinc with everything:
>"A few iron-bearing minerals will respond to a magnet in
>varying degrees or may be natural magnets such as lodestone, a
>variety of magnetite that has been used and studied for
>centuries. Franklinite and some varieties of hematite are
>weakly magnetic, and become more strongly magnetic if they are
>heated"
>
>Do you think if we heat up all our pieces of hematite we will
>get some stronger permanent magnets from them? Or perhaps
>they will be more strongly attracted to a magnet:)
>
>I never called Hematite a magnet. You don't have to be a
>permanent magnet to be magnetic, there are several types of
>magnetism and they are not created by a NASA conspiracy. They
>are right there in the field guides and popular dictionary.
>It can be magnetic when it exhibits magnetic properties, which
>according to the field guides and dictionary are all correct
>useage for the word "magnetic".
>
>I am sympathetic to the problem you describe regarding
>sensationalist fires, flaming glowing stones on the ground,
>moon basalts, etc., but don't get too rabid on me on this
>one. You'll need more than Michael Blood "Go, David" post to
>back you up and constitute an unbiased reference, especially
>since that other respected opinion has ideas which have
>severely clashed with my own, all in good fun, of course. He
>still, for example is baffled why people get huffy about
>meteorite-list spam, simply because he doesn't mind removing
>such spam.
>
>Here the confusion seems to be with the "people in the know",
>and not with all the rest that you are re-educating. Perhaps
>Michael and you can put together a program to reeducate the
>English world to censure an accepted definition of magnetic
>because it is "confusing at best" according to you guys, but
>why not start with the word meteorite if you are going to take
>that route, because my opinion is that meteor- sounds too much
>like atmospheric since it is from the same root as meteorology
>and greek root from sky. Maybe meteorite should be called
>Kosmoite (Kosmoid?), or ETite, instead... This is of course as
>preposterous as the censure you and Michael recommend.
>Perhaps talking about magnetism and its different forms and
>what true properties meteorites do have will be a better
>approach for all those you feel are not correctly educated out
>there! Or is your true goal to shut down the national
>Inquirer - that's not gonna happen. Plus it is a US First
>Amendment right, even for stupid and ignorant people! Can we
>just stick with the Audubon field guide idea of magnetic, and
>when the situation calls for it of course use the appropriate
>clarity.
>Saludos, Doug
>PS, Also, how you ran with my hematite comments and along the
>way they have inappropriately been embellished to possibly
>suggest that using the word magnetic instandard English as
>intended means all meteorites are magnetic by any
>definition....No way Jos?, I won't even sit for that.
>Your point is fine with regarding meteorites not occuring as
>natural magnets. Nor hematite, nor magnetite except
>lodestone, It doesn't require NASA to explain to the huddled
>meteorite hunting masses, and I will be sure to keep it
>straight if there is every a chance for a problem in this
>respect, which I don't anticipate at the moment.
>
>
>
>From: David Freeman <dfreeman_at_fascination.com>
>
>Dear Doug;
>I think my point here is: I have about 1,500 folks in SW Wyoming,
>Colorado, Utah, and Michigan; involved in some passive form of hunting
>rocks that may have fell from the sky (meaning non-magnetic
>meteorites).
>I don't know where they get the initial idea from (... ;-) ), probably
>from the University of Wyoming's traveling NASA Space Rock Education
>Program, but, fact is about one third of those that initially make
>contact with me here locally seem to think that meteorites ARE magnetic.
>They burn all the way down to the sage brush too. Even caught the
>Great Lake States on fire in 1871! ...it glowed in the dark when we
>brought it in the house. The cat seen it talk.
>One of the down sides is that if the specimen doesn't pick up a paper
>clip, they tell me horror stories of just leaving the suspected (by me
>to be possibly) meteorites behind (seriously this has happened more than
>a few times).
>Another of my favorite fantasies is that it landed on the top of White
>Mountain, just over the hill. Well, I just drop what I'm doin' and go
>lookin'!
>You tell me..... It's hard enough to dispel the glow-in-the-dark,
>caught-the-field-on-fire, only-my-basalt-comes-from-the-moon grand
>illusionists with out help from the meteorite community. Do you tell
>others to hunt for your "magnetic meteorites"? ...worse yet, do you
>hunt magnetic meteorites? Geezh! Diamond meteorite here we come!
>We can now feel safe in using our compass to point to meteorites as we
>saunter about the desert? Be a lot of undiscovered lunar and martian,
>and L, LL's out there.
>
>It is a shame that those in the know, meaning us here vern; can't help
>the problem instead of add to the confusion. What a urban legend to
>start, or even fuel....magnetic meteorites. New field testing apparatus
>for meteorites, a paper clip on a string! On the other end of the new
>style of detector, you put a safety pin to attach the device to your
>shirt ...and to hold the paper with yer name on it, ...in case we get
>lost and confused in all that magnetism from a strewnfield.
>
>Could we have a show of hands, is it fair for someone that should know
>better to term meteorites as magnetic, and accept it as permissible?
>
>Next story, drowning fishes, flying with wax wings, and the Earth is
>only 5,000 years old (revisit # 523).
>
>>From the Western front of Galaxie-Meteorite-Country (meaning east of
>Utah),
>Dave Freeman (already on a string, and pointing south)
>
>MexicoDoug_at_aol.com wrote:
>
>>Dave "Magnetic Personality" Freeman asked:
>>
>>>...car engine blocks...made of iron but not magnetic...
>>>hematite, magnetite (except lodestone) not magnetic...
>>>...Incorrect use of word magnetic...
>>>Could you clarify the use of "man is it magnetic"?
>>>
>>"Magmatic Personality" Doug responds:
>>
>>Well, aren't you being a stickler! It's Ok to call
>>disoriented kitchen sink variety iron magnetic! I thought
>>engine blocks were made mostly from aluminum nowadays, so I
>>agree those wouldn't be very magnetic, unless you put it in
>>the context of passing a directional electrical current
>>through them and voila, electromagnet!
>>
>>If I must explain myself, I guess I would have to clarify
>>the "man it is magnetic!" to be:
>>
>>"Fellow males and females of the Homo sapiens sapiens
>>subspecies, when the piece of suspected hematite is
>>introduced into a magnetic field created by a strong
>>permanent ferromagnetic material at ambient conditions, the
>>specific sample of suspected antiferrimagnetic hematite
>>exhibits a statistically significant paramagnetism not
>>observed even weakly in the other samples collected in the
>>same locality under apparently similar conditions raising
>>suspicion that the assumption of similar sample histories
>>could be wrong, or could be a "random" statistical
>>fluctuation. The adjective magnetic, thus, is perfectly
>>correct to use to describe the phenomenon produced when the
>>listener has been warned in context that the magnetic
>>properties are induced by the magnetic field of the rare
>>earth magnet, as was patently clarified."
>>
>>Now when you say a magnet is magnetic, I'll not be a pain in
>>the ass, and agree with you as I muse what this means in the
>>total absence of infrared radiation or other heat generating
>>sources. The maglev train engineers could probably clarify
>>that better. The point being I understand from context you
>>mean at ambient conditions when nothing funny is going on.
>>
>>Your steel engine block may not be magnetic now, but if you
>>touch your meteorite cane's magnet to it, it shall be, though
>>it won't become a permanent magnet unless you magnetize it,
>>which isn't very hard to do. But it is always magnetic in
>>ambient conditions when in a magnetic field. Such are
>>paramagnetic materiales...
>>
>>And the fact that many geologists choose to distinguish "being
>>attracted to a magnet" vs. "attracting magnetic elements" is
>>a convenience, but certainly not a reason to call the use of
>>the word "MAGNETIC" incorrect. Your beef seems more that I
>>didn't specify whether it was a permanent magnet or not.
>>That's a different question, and rather than being correct or
>>incorrect, it is simply an unknown in my case.
>>
>>Wait...I checked it. It is a very weak permanent magnet and
>>thus correctly "magnetic" even by your English useage
>>convention. The test I just did was: a non-magnetized cold
>>rolled steel chisel as the control and the sample as the
>>unknown. Chisel failed to orient iron filings from my latest
>>plumbing project mess, but the sample oriented them, proving
>>it produces a very weak magnetic field. Whether this was
>>present before I briefly tested it with the meteorite cane in
>>the field, I don't know, as I suppose it is worth
>>investigating whether that the rare earth magnet could have
>>magnetized it.
>>
>>And finally, when a permanent magnet produces a magnetic
>>field, it's usually not worth getting philosophical on
>>whether the permanent magnet is attracting the sample, or
>>whether the sample is attracting the permanent magnet. I'll
>>stick with "magnetic" unless my communication becomes
>>ambiguous (let alone incorrect!) for a specific item or some
>>rabid geologist threatens to beat me up.
>>Is that clear now:)
>>Saludos MagmaticDoug
>>
>>Subj: Re: [meteorite-list] Pasamonte magnetism
>> Date: 9/7/2004 1:35:20 AM Eastern Daylight Time
>> From: David Freeman <dfreeman_at_fascination.com>
>> To: MexicoDoug_at_aol.com
>>
>>Dear MexicoDoug, and all;
>>I see the phrase "...man is it magnetic" used below. I find that most folks use "magnetic" in meaning the rock is attracted to a magnet...and that is a non correct use of the word. A magnet is magnetic, as is natural lode stone. Car engine blocks although made of iron, are not magnetic. Hematite, magnetite (except for lode stone), and banded iron
>>formation (iron ore) are not magnetic.
>>Could you clarify the use of "man is it magnetic"?
>>
>>Magnetic personality,
>>Dave F.
>>
>
>
Received on Tue 07 Sep 2004 04:28:46 PM PDT