[meteorite-list] Meteor's Appearance Over Wisconsin A Hot Topic

From: MexicoDoug_at_aol.com <MexicoDoug_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Jan 6 13:11:27 2005
Message-ID: <c8.55bb8edc.2f0ed946_at_aol.com>

En un mensaje con fecha 01/06/2005 11:38:10 AM Mexico Standard Time,
dfreeman_at_fascination.com escribe:

>Could someone Please contact Jessica Bock and tell
>her meteorites in general public's concept/ definition
>of what it takes to be "magnetic"....are not magnetic.

Dave, Don't get me started on this one again, with all due respect, and
understanding of your issue with potential "layman" confusion that magnetic means
the object is a permanent magnet. Magnetism requires dance partners.
Responding to a permanent magnet is just as magnetic as being a permanent magnet
in most popular dictionary definitions. Under a specific definition you would
like to impose, you can change the world, but... In science responding to a
magnet, paramagnetism, is just as magnetic as a permanent magnet. Science
recognizes paramagnetism is a bonafide magnetic property. Your car engine block
argument is only shooting yourself in the foot.

Example just posted to the list was troilite. See what Norton says in the
Cambridge Encyclopedia of Meteorites about Troilite, and get him to change
before working on telling the public that iron is not a magnetic metal:

page 207, Norton, Cambridge Encyclopedia of Meteorites, Cambridge University
Press, 2002:

"Pyrrhotite is magnetic but with varying intensity. Oddly, it increases in
magnetism as the deficiency in iron increases. Under natural conditions
within meteorites, troilite is non-magnetic; but if it is melted and cooled, it
becomes magnetic."

Dave, I believe none of these refer to permanent magnets, and try as he will
to sidestep your issues in his books with the phrase "attracted to a
magnet", even kind O. R. Norton is totally clear here that he accepts that iron is
magnetic, which you say it is not. The problem you seek to address is not to
tell people that they are misinformed. Just suggest kindly that that clarify
 that meteorites are magnetic but not permanent magnets themselves. Or to
be more specific "meteorites, like engine blocks are paramagnetic." They
attract magnets. Notice how I worded that. They attract magnets, even though I
could have said magnets attract them. The shoe is on the other foot and it
is equally correct. That's magnetism and magnetic, two dance partners to do
it! A permanent magnet without something else to act with it is like a tree
falling in a forest making a sound with no one around to hear it.
Saludos, your friend Doug
Received on Thu 06 Jan 2005 01:11:18 PM PST