Fig. 11.1 shows a bar magnet that has been broken into two pieces, P and Q. (a) State the poles of piece Q from left to right. [1] (b) State the total numbe...
Question 1 Report
Fig. 11.1 shows a bar magnet that has been broken into two pieces, P and Q.
(a) State the poles of piece Q from left to right. [1]
(b) State the total number of poles on the two pieces combined. [1]
(c) State whether it is possible to obtain an isolated north pole by breaking a magnet. Explain your answer. [2]
Answer Details
(a) The poles of piece Q from left to right are: N (left) and S (right). [1]
When a magnet is broken, the internal domain alignment is preserved. The original bar had N on the left and S on the right. Piece Q came from the right-hand (S) end of the original bar, but the domains throughout Q still point left-to-right (N to S), so Q has N on its left face and S on its right face.
(b) The total number of poles on the two pieces combined is four (two on each piece). [1]
Piece P has an N pole and an S pole; piece Q also has an N pole and an S pole. Each piece is a complete magnet.
(c) No, it is not possible to obtain an isolated north pole by breaking a magnet. [1]
Every time a magnet is broken, each resulting piece becomes a complete magnet with both a north pole and a south pole. [1] This is because magnetism arises from the alignment of domains (groups of atomic magnetic dipoles). Each domain, no matter how small, has both a north and south end. You cannot separate one pole from the other; magnetic monopoles do not exist. Even if you kept breaking the pieces into smaller and smaller fragments, each fragment would always have two poles.
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