Answer:
Hold one bar by one end, say, vertically in your left hand. Then take the other bar in your right hand and hold it in a horizontal position. Cause one end of the right-hand bar to approach the middle of the vertical bar. If no pull is felt when the bars are nearly in contact then the bar in the right hand is the plain bar and the one in the left is the magnet. The reason is that the middle of a uniform bar magnet is not magnetic. If, on the other hand, the magnetized bar had been in the right hand, and the plain bar in the left, then on approach a pull would have been felt, and this would have been due to one of the poles of the bar in the right hand, for the bar in the left hand could not exert a pull at its middle, even if it too were a magnet.
Table of Contents -- 7/5/97
