Magnets that you see every day, like the kind people use on refrigerators, are usually made of iron. Everything in the world that you can touch is made up of little tiny building blocks called atoms . These are tiny little things so small you cannot see them with your eye. Now it was found out a long time ago that electricity and magnetism are two ways of looking at the same thing, like heads and tails are both part of a coin. They are different, but connected.
Every atom naturally has a little bit of electric charge.
But the problem is, in most things, the atoms don't line up the right way and all the magnetic fields cancel out. Copyright 1996, Washington University. All rights reserved.