--- title: Magnets: pulling and pushing without touching — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Magnets: pulling and pushing without touching», a lesson of the physics course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: A magnet can pull a paper clip across the table without touching it, through an invisible region around it called its magnet --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/29-magnets-pulling-and-pushing-without-touching/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Physics](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/) / Magnets: pulling and pushing without t… # Magnets: pulling and pushing without touching Lesson 29 of the physics course of Mova's primary school: 14 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/physics/29-magnets-pulling-and-pushing-without-touching/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/29-magnets-pulling-and-pushing-without-touching/0/) — A magnet can pull a paper clip across the table without touching it, through an invisible region around it called its magnetic field. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/29-magnets-pulling-and-pushing-without-touching/1/) — Every magnet has two ends, a north pole and a south pole; bring two north poles together and you feel them push apart like an invisible cushion, turn one round and they snap together. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/29-magnets-pulling-and-pushing-without-touching/2/) — Only a few metals are pulled strongly, mainly iron, steel, nickel and cobalt, which is why a magnet grabs a steel paper clip but ignores an aluminium can. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/29-magnets-pulling-and-pushing-without-touching/3/) — Inside a magnet, countless tiny magnets are lined up the same way; cut it in half and each half is a whole magnet with its own north and south. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/29-magnets-pulling-and-pushing-without-touching/5/) — Magnets pull iron and steel without touching them, and the pull fades quickly with distance. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/29-magnets-pulling-and-pushing-without-touching/6/) — Only iron, steel, nickel and cobalt are pulled strongly; most metals, such as aluminium, copper and gold, are not. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/29-magnets-pulling-and-pushing-without-touching/7/) — Every magnet has a north pole and a south pole: like poles push apart, unlike poles pull together. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/29-magnets-pulling-and-pushing-without-touching/8/) — Iron filings sprinkled around a magnet line up and show its invisible magnetic field; the lines bunch up at the poles, where the pull is strongest. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/29-magnets-pulling-and-pushing-without-touching/9/) — A magnet is made of countless tiny magnets lined up together, so a magnet cut in half becomes two magnets, each with both poles. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/29-magnets-pulling-and-pushing-without-touching/10/) — Stroking a steel paper clip or needle with a magnet lines up its tiny magnets and makes it a weak magnet; dropping or heating it jumbles them again. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/29-magnets-pulling-and-pushing-without-touching/11/) — Magnetism passes through wood, paper, plastic and water, but a thick sheet of iron soaks most of it up. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/29-magnets-pulling-and-pushing-without-touching/12/) — Two small strong magnets swallowed by a child can pull together through the walls of the gut and badly damage it; this is an emergency. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/29-magnets-pulling-and-pushing-without-touching/14/) — Maglev trains use strong magnets to float above the track and move along it; with no wheels touching, there is almost no friction. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/29-magnets-pulling-and-pushing-without-touching/15/) — An electric motor spins because electricity in a coil of wire makes it a magnet that is pushed and pulled by other magnets. - ← previous: [Electricity and safety](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/28-electricity-and-safety/) - next →: [Compasses and the magnetic Earth](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/30-compasses-and-the-magnetic-earth/) - ↑ back to [Physics](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/)