This thread originates from within 'usenet', and as such the content and users are not guaranteed to have been moderated by our community. Don Phillipson:[nq:1]I'm watching the Simpsons. Bart says Eat my shorts a lot and I know it's some kind of insult. But I'm just wondering what SHORT means in this sentence.
Materials that can be magnetized, which are also the ones that are strongly attracted to a magnet, are called ferromagnetic (or ferrimagnetic). These include iron, nickel, cobalt, some alloys of rare earth metals, and some naturally occurring minerals such as lodestone.
Only materials containing iron, cobalt, nickel, or a few other rare elements are noticeably magnetic. Public Domain Image, source: NASA. Not all metals are magnetic. Actually, it depends on what you mean by the word magnetic. There are four basic types of magnetism that a material can have: superconducting, diamagnetic, paramagnetic, and lastly ferromagnetic. Superconducting materials are strongly repelled from permanent magnets.