Since opposite poles attract, you can put two magnets together to make a larger magnet. If you have many little magnets, you can keep adding magnets into a larger mass and have one large, strong magnet. Some molecules, some atoms, and all electrons are little magnets. In most matter, the molecules, atoms, and electrons are all jumbled up together. This makes the magnetic force of all the little magnets add up to make a large magnet, called a permanent magnet.
Free magnets tend to align with each other.
You can try this by placing one magnet on a table and slowly moving another magnet toward it. The magnet that is loose on the table turns to align with the magnet in your hand. If you stroke a piece of iron with a magnet, you gradually align the little magnetic domains, and the result is a larger magnet. Electric current is the flow of electrons through a conductor. A conductor is a material that lets the electrons hop from atom to atom when influenced by an outside force.