Since electricity and magnetism are intimately linked, I’m wondering how it is exactly that a magnet which is not receiving any outside electrical current generates a magnetic field. Does the magnet itself generate its own electric current? Or, am I missing something? Is there something more basic.
I mean, I know that running electricity through a coil of wires generates a magnetic field. So, when you’re not actively running electricity through or around a magnet, why is a field still generated? Wouldn’t the field collapse once the electric field that created the magnet is removed? Or is there still a circulating electric current inside the magnet. If so, how can that be?
If I had to theorize, I’d say the magnetic field is coupled with an electric field, and a magnet’s atoms are aligned in such a way as to let electrons flow through the magnet in a natural circuit, thus generating the corresponding electric field? Am I off base?
Physics gurus only? No one-liners. List sources…? 
I’m wondering if the externally generated electrical current pulls the atoms into an alignment such that electrons are allowed to flow in a circuit within the magnet, thus generating the external magnetic field, even after the external current is taken away, the atoms are still in alignment such that the electrons of the magnet can still flow?
tbolling2
Okay, I’ve heard similar explanations before, haven’t entirely gotten them.
So, we’re saying that the electrons orbiting the nucleus give off or create a magnetic field, and enough of them together in the same basic alignment give off a bigger magnetic field?
So, one could say perhaps that the magnetic field is proportional to the difference of the total orbits in the magnet, IE, if more are orbiting one way than the other, you’ll get a field, wherreas if equal amounts are orbiting oppositely you’ll get no effect because they cancel each other out?
So could we say something to the effect that the magnetic waves or lines of force are either reinforcing or interfering with each other, much like in interferometry? IE, if you get waves moving in tandem they tend to reinforce one another and make themselves larger (or combine to make one larger wave), whereas if you get waves that are opposite they neutralize each other?
This begins to make more sense. Thank you.
However, if the electron itself is generating a magnetic field on its scale, where does its field come from? IE, is an electron magnetic? If so where does its field come from? Is an electron the smallest indivisable unit that can be used to generate a magnetic field or is there something more basic that creates the field of the electron? Or is it simply the electron’s motion around the nucleus that generates the field? If so, how? Does the electron somehow drag space to create a wave in it? Or what? Or are there charges circulating within the electron that cause it to have its own magnetic field? IS the field scaleable to smaller dimensions, or is the electron the smallest thing that generates a field? So many questions so little time.
God, I love that statement! It speaks volumes to our current understanding of physics…
"A lot of things are dictated by uncertainty." In the realm of physics education, ain’t that the truth…?