Why do magnets have north and south poles? The most basic a | Ask Me
Why do magnets have north and south poles?
The most basic answer to this question lies in the behavior of electrons having a property called 'spin' which causes magnetic fields to exert a force on them.
In a magnet, the spins of the electrons line up so that the small magnetic field produced by each electron's spin adds up into a large magnetic field which can be felt by other charged particles far away. The force of a magnetic field on a particle with spin causes the particle to rotate its spin to align with the magnetic field. Hence a smaller magnet inside a large magnetic field will try to align with that larger magnetic field.
Earth has its own magnetic field that points approximately in the northern direction. The huge magnetic field causes magnets to align north to south. That's why people named them the north and south poles.
As opposite poles attract, technically, the northern magnetic pole on Earth can be also considered a magnetic south pole.
