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

From: David Freeman <dfreeman_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Jan 6 13:35:58 2005
Message-ID: <41DD8510.9040406_at_fascination.com>

Dear Doug;
Try telling that nit-picky scientific story to those that carry a paper
clip on a string and actively use that simple tool to distinguish
 magnetic meteorites in the field......BAH!!! Guess I deal with too
many amateur field hunters and not enough acadamians like yourself.
Para-nuttic,
Dave F.
See thread below:

MexicoDoug_at_aol.com wrote:

>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 01:36:00 PM PST