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Re: Earth's Magnetic Field



I agree that geomagnetic is a really bad term. But it seems to me that
saying the north geographic pole is a south magnetic pole is very
clear. When I work with students who are working with magnets, and
they say north pole or south pole, I make them repeat the sentence to
include either magnetic or geographic so I know which type of pole they
are talking about. Sticking in the extra word is not that bad. For
example, pointing to the end of a bar magnet and saying "this is the
north magnetic pole" is easy once you get used to it... and it really
helps drive home the difference.

Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D. Phone/voice-mail: 419-358-3270
Professor of Chemistry & Physics FAX: 419-358-3323
Chairman, Science Department E-Mail edmiston@bluffton.edu
Bluffton College
280 West College Avenue
Bluffton, OH 45817



-----Original Message-----
From: John Denker [SMTP:jsd@MONMOUTH.COM]
Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 1999 9:37 AM
To: PHYS-L@LISTS.NAU.EDU
Subject: Re: Earth's Magnetic Field

At 02:36 PM 5/10/99 -0600, Larry Smith wrote:
I don't care which way we decide to do
it, as long as we can all agree together. What is the vote on this
list
for the convention?

There's not much to vote on. The conventions have been standard
worldwide
and unchanged for at least 400 years
http://es.rice.edu/ES/humsoc/Galileo/People/gilbert.html
and probably much longer.

1) Compasses are marked so that their "N" poles point toward Canada.

2) Other bar magnets are marked the same way as compass needles.

3) Other magnets are marked the same way as bar magnets.

--------

Now for some pedagogic tools:

a) The following statement seems to work:
The earth and its magnetic field can be modelled by taking a sphere
and
skewering it with a bar magnet. The "S" pole of the bar magnet is in
northern Canada and the "N" pole is in Antarctica.

b) I recommend avoiding the term "geomagnetic north pole" because it is
a
notorious source of confusion. Note that the recommended statement
uses
Canada as a circumlocution for geographic north, and uses "N" and "S"
(not
"North" and "South") to denote the markings on a bar magnet.

Cheers --- jsd