I recall a discussion recently on a similar topic, but I don't recall
which list it was...
My school owns a pretty old set of cenco magnets, and a new magnetizer.
Both, apparently, are labeled backwards. The end of a magnet labeled N
should point north if suspended from a string, right? After all, Earth's
south magnetic pole is near the geographic north pole. Well, all of my
magnets' norths point south, therefore Cenco has blown it!
Anybody know if this is still going on? I am tempted to relabel the
magnetizer and then update all the magnets, just for correctness' sake.
Also, do you know of a compassmaker who can be counted upon to make
compasses which always point north? The cheapies my school owns seem to
sometimes point north, sometimes south.