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thinking-turtle's avatar

Very interesting. The piece of iron aligns with the magnetic field lines.

Gilbert's theory about the line going through the lodestone would fail if he placed a rod to the right of D in the first drawing. There would still be a force, even though the "chord drawn from that end" would not go through the lodestone at all.

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Gerald Therrien's avatar

Is Gilbert showing that the properties of the terrella are geometric, and not arithmetic?

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