Is steel magnetic? And have steel poles?

When using a magnet in front of pure steel, the magnet is attracted to the steel, no matter which way you turn the magnet or the steel. That's because magnets react "monopolically" to steel; i.e. as if the magnet has only 1 pole. But opposite another magnet, magnets will always react with or north and south poles at play.

Is steel magnetic?

The short answer is yes.

But the long answer is that it depends on whether it is a pure iron product and whether the magnetism is destroyed due to very high heat in the machining process. Because when steel is mixed with other metals, the magnetism can disappear (or at least be greatly reduced). It is, among other things, therefore, that stainless steel is not magnetic. BUT if it is only a coating on top of precious metal with a thin layer of stainless steel that is a mixture, then you will find that you have a magnetic surface. And when metals are heated to a very high temperature, you can destroy the magnetism and make it non-magnetic, which can have many advantages.

It was a bit of a pretzel, but take e.g. a stainless steel fridge: it is not magnetic as it is made entirely of stainless steel without a core of pure metal. If, on the other hand, you take a magnetic board that is made of stainless steel, this is only part of the alloy, and the board is magnetic, as you can capture the pure metal through the coating. So the board is magnetic.

Does steel have a north and a south pole?

Does steel have poles like magnets? No! You can magnetize steel by activating the ferromagnetic metal, which is why you may find that your screwdriver becomes magnetic towards light objects such as screws and nails. But the screwdriver itself will not be able to hang on the fridge like a magnet. The magnetism is not at all clean and strong enough for that.

That is why you will not be able to make opposites to magnets with steel either. The magnetism in the magnets will always be stronger than the magnetism in the steel, and the steel will therefore follow the magnet. So if you need to use magnetism for repulsion, you need 2 magnets and cannot use a steel part as one party.

If you are interested in the structure of magnets and poles, you can read about diametral magnetization and axial magnetization here< /a>.