For the life of me (That is not very good grammar is it?), I can not see
why you guys are making this so difficult. The north end of a compass is
called the north pole of the compass because it points North!!! Or at
least nearly North. It really points toward northern Canada, because of
mineral deposits there. Only Canadians are able to explain this weirdness.
The French Canadians understand this weirdness best..
The first person to notice this phenomenon was my friend Herbie. He used
to live in a region called Magnesia in what is now called Turkey. The
region is called Magnesia because there are lots of weird rocks there --
also called magnesia. When the cows eat the grass in this region they
produce milk called Milk of Magnesia.
Well, one day this friend of mine, Herbie, also weird, suspended one of
these weird rocks from a thread (I told you he is weird.) and noticed that
it always pointed north. He called the end of the rock which always
pointed North "north" -- because it pointed North. He decided to go into
business making boxes with suspended magnesia rocks, the north end of
which always pointed North (He called the end which pointed North the north
end -- because it always pointed North.) He calls these boxes compasses --
and he makes a lot money selling them to mariners and others. If you want
to buy one of these boxes, I can arrange it -- for a small fee, of course.
Or, for that matter (or any other matter), I do have a few shares of stock
in his company left to offer.
Now it is true that much later, long after Herbie started his business, it
was discovered that like magnetic poles repel, so that the place in Canada
where the compass points must be a south magnetic pole.
Now back to the French Canadians: Because the south magnetic pole is not
centered at the north geographic pole, the axis of the Earth's magnetism
does not coincide with the geographic pole axis. And this is why the
Earth wobbles and why there are tides. I admit that this does not
translate from French very well.
Well, OK, his name is not Herbie -- I have changed his name to protect the
innocent -- but the rest is absolutely true -- well mostly true.
Jim Green (This is only an alias)
JMGreen@sisna.com