How Magnets Work

In 2026 the European Physical Society gave its Europhysics Prize to three physicists for altermagnetism, which it describes as a third basic kind of magnetic order. To see why that matters, this film goes back to the beginning: the lodestone and the compass, Gilbert's little Earth, Ørsted's current, the electromagnet, the electron's spin, why paired electrons cancel, how iron's domains line up and how heat destroys them, antiferromagnets, the magnets inside motors, MRI scanners and hard drives, and finally the altermagnet. Cut a magnet in half, switch a current on, magnetise iron, heat it past its Curie point and switch between three kinds of magnetic order.

A third kind of magnet

An old force, a new discovery.

The lodestone

A rock that pulls on iron and turns to face north.

A little Earth

Why a needle points north at all.

Poles never come alone

Every magnet carries an invisible field.

Ørsted’s needle

Electricity and magnetism turn out to be one thing.

The electromagnet

Coil the wire, add iron, switch it on.

Tiny magnets everywhere

A lodestone has no wires. So where are its currents?

Why most things are not magnets

Electrons like to pair up, back to back.

Neighbours that agree

How a plain iron nail becomes a magnet.

The Curie point

Heat a magnet enough and it forgets.

The hidden magnets

Order that cancels itself out.

Motors, magnets and scanners

Where the strongest magnets go to work.

Reading with spin

A Nobel Prize that went inside hard drives.

Cancelled, yet split

A magnet with no net field that still sorts electrons by spin.

The crowd of tiny magnets

One small thing behind it all.

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