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Suppose, we leave two magnets in space close to each other with no other force acting on them apart from the attractive force between them. One is stronger than the other but, they have the same mass. Would they meet at the middle or closer to the stronger?

It’s important to clarify that although both magnets have the same mass we have to assume that a percentage of the material of the weaker one is not magnetizable, otherwise we could assume that the stronger magnet would induce a field in the weaker one making the strength of both fields similar.

Pedro
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    What if only one was magnetized and the other was simply magnetic. Would you expect only the non-magnet to move? – J... Jan 19 '21 at 13:47
  • @J... don’t know what you mean but if one is a magnet and the other is a magnetic material like iron then the iron would become magnetized when in contact with the field so theoretically it would be a magnet to, probably with a weaker field. – Pedro Jan 19 '21 at 13:54
  • I think you've missed the point... – J... Jan 19 '21 at 14:04
  • @J... what’s the difference between being simply magnetic and being magnetized?(probably missed the point) – Pedro Jan 19 '21 at 14:08
  • Well, if it wasn't magnetic (a piece of plastic, etc) then nothing would happen - there would be no force and nothing would move, right? Try to think about the consequences and implications here. Maybe the problem is that you're asking this question without really understanding what magnetism is first... – J... Jan 19 '21 at 14:21
  • @J... Correct but how does that answer my question? – Pedro Jan 19 '21 at 14:23
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    We seem to agree that two equal magnets of the same strength and mass would meet together, each moving towards the other in equal but opposite directions. You are asking what would happen if you introduced imbalance in the strength of the fields being generated by each magnet. I am taking that to the extreme case where one magnet has all the field and the other has none (ie: no longer a magnet, but still made of magnetic material so that it can interact and experience the force). Consider what your intuition says in that limit. – J... Jan 19 '21 at 14:27

3 Answers3

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If you consider the two magnets together as a system, there is no external force acting on it. Since there is no external force acting on it, the centre of mass of the system remains unchanged. As a result, no matter how the magnets move, they will do so in such a fashion as to keep the centre of mass constant. From this, it should be easy to see that the two magnets will meet at their centre of mass. If the magnets have the same mass, they will meet at the middle If one of the magnets is much more massive than the other, the centre of mass will be shifted towards that magnet, and so they will meet closer to the "heavier" magnet.

Note: This is independent of the strength of the magnets.

Philip
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    Does this account for radiation? – Sandejo Jan 19 '21 at 06:13
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    Good question! To he honest, I don't know. It's something I was concerned about when writing the system (hence the qualifier about considering the two magnets being a system with no external force acting on it). I suppose there could be some sort of tiny magnetic radiation reaction force, with some complicated momentum transfer with the fields, but I think it's a little beyond my pay grade. Also, I don't think it's at the level at which the question was pitched. That being said, it'd make a great follow up question on PSE! – Philip Jan 19 '21 at 08:14
  • unless these are some extremely strong magnets, losses to radiation will be negligible with respect to the kinetic energy and so, for all intents and purposes, they will still meet at the centre of mass. The stronger dipole ought to lose more energy than the weaker though, so the meeting point would likely be slightly closer to the stronger magnet but again, I doubt this would be plausibly measurable in any sort of bench-top experiment – Tristan Jan 19 '21 at 14:37
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Newton's Third Law says that the force exerted on Magnet #1 by Magnet #2 is equal in magnitude to the force exerted on Magnet #2 by Magnet #1. Since they have the same mass, they will therefore accelerate at the same rate, and they will therefore meet exactly in the middle.

The relative strength of the magnets is a red herring. One way to see this is to note that the magnetic force between two magnetic dipoles is proportional to the product of the dipole moments similar to how the force between two charges is proportional to the product of the charges. Thus, the stronger magnet creates a stronger magnetic field at the location of the weaker magnet than vice versa; but the stronger magnet also responds more strongly to a given field than the weaker magnet does. These two factors cancel each other out, and the force ends up being the same.


This does neglect the effects of electromagnetic radiation, which could conceivably carry a small amount of momentum off to infinity. I would expect, from similar calculations involving electric dipoles, that the radiation would be proportional to the square of the jerk $j$. A bit more dimensional analysis shows that the net momentum flux at infinity due to the radiation fields should be something like $$ \frac{d P_\text{rad}}{d t} \sim \frac{ \mu_0 m^2}{c^6} j^2. $$ The radiation reaction force must therefore also be proportional to this quantity. If we denote $v$ as the velocity scale of the dipoles during their motion, $R$ as the length scale of the motion, and $T$ as the time scale, we have $$ j \sim \frac{v}{T^2} \sim \frac{v}{(R/v)^2} \sim \frac{v^3}{R^2} $$ and so the radiation reaction force on the dipoles should be (to within a few orders of magnitude $$ \frac{d P_\text{rad}}{d t} \sim \frac{\mu_0 m^2}{R^4} \frac{v^6}{c^6}. $$ Since the actual dipole force between the magnets will be roughly proportional to $\mu_0 m^2/R^4$, we conclude that the effects of the radiation reaction force will smaller than the those of the radiation reaction force by a factor of $(v/c)^6$ (to within a few orders of magnitude.) So long as the magnets remain non-relativistic, this effect would of course be utterly negligible.

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    The relative strength of the magnets is a red herring As long as you are checking “utterly negligible” effects here is one: center of mass is for a system “magnet+static magnetic field”. When magnets are touching their joint field no longer has the center of mass in the middle. For determination of the center of this new field distribution relative strength of magnets does matter. – A.V.S. Jan 20 '21 at 07:37
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As you probably know, there's no magnetic monopoles thus it would be difficult to compare the magnitude of the force between two magnets unlike in the case of two electrically charged particles where its pretty straightforward.

The simplest interaction would be magnetic dipole--dipole interaction.

If you leave two opposite charged particles like electron and proton and if you compare the gravitational and electromagnetic force between them, you can get the following ratio

$$\frac{F_g}{F_e} \approx 10^{-40} $$

If you take the electron and proton example into consideration, and if you consider everything classically you can say they will meet somewhere closer to the proton. But this picture is flawed.

Monopole
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  • So you think if the experiment was made they would meet closer to the stronger? – Pedro Jan 19 '21 at 01:00
  • In the analogy I used, instead of magnets I used electron and proton where the masses are different that was the reason why it'd meet closer to proton. – Monopole Jan 19 '21 at 01:12
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    The question was about identical masses. Any two same masses that have any attraction to each other will meet in the center if there are no external forces. – Adrian Howard Jan 19 '21 at 01:50
  • Thanks, of course, forgot to mention explicitly in the answer yet one can deduce it from my previous comment. – Monopole Jan 19 '21 at 02:04
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    it's perfectly possible to compare the strength of two magnets. This is exactly what the magnetic dipole moment is. As Adrian points out though, absent any external forces (or radiation, but this will doubtless be negligible in any practical experiment) though, the strength of the magnets is irrelevant due to conservation of centre of mass motion – Tristan Jan 19 '21 at 14:40