Birds of a Feather, Fig. Birds of a Feather Misaligned Magnets Consider a string of 10 magnets, labelled 1 to 10. If magnet 1 is slightly misaligned with its neighbor, atomic magnet 2, and magnet 2 is slightly misaligned with magnet 3, and so on, there is a good chance that magnet 1 will be significantly misaligned with magnet 10.
Many atoms behave as if they have a tiny bar magnet.
In a material made of magnetic atoms, the presence of heat will cause the atoms to slightly misalign their magnets with their neighbors. Carrying this analogy to flocks, researchers thought it would be difficult for distant birds to line up with one another.