Magnets and Supplies

Have you ever come across an index card with notches at the top and wondered, “what is this thing?” Universally known as T-Cards, these unique index cards are widely used by manufacturers, maintenance teams, warehouse specialists, and even emergency responders to track inventory levels and jobs.

After a disappointing 3-13 record last year, there was an immense importance for the Oakland Raiders to have a successful draft last weekend. With proper preparation and state of the art war room that included Magnatag Visible Systems’ WhiteWalls^® (magnetic whiteboard wall paneling), the Oakland Raiders were equipped to execute a successful draft.

What is a Magnet?
The word "magnet" comes to us from the ancient Greeks, who were aware of the basic properties of magnetic stones as far back as about 600 B.C. Legend attributes the name to Magnes, a shepherd whose metal staff struck the first such stone, but in truth, it probably came from a city in Asia Minor famous for magnetic minerals. A magnet is any object that generates a magnetic field. Each magnet has a north pole and a south pole of its own, just like Earth. Magnets attract iron and other ferrous metals. They can be used for compasses because if it is put in an appropriate setting and allowed to move freely, a lightweight magnet will point toward the North Pole.

Many people connect magnets in their minds to tiny items on a refrigerator or whiteboard, the guts of a compass, or perhaps a giant, red, horseshoe-shaped object used in cartoons. Many of us don't know what makes up magnetic fields, or why they work, and believe that magnetism does not affect our daily lives. However, magnetism is essentially important, because electricity and magnetism are inseparable – they are two aspects of the same force. Magnets are everywhere – in fans, computers, washing machines, medical equipment, and have a large part in generating the electricity that comes into the home, enabling you to use your television, gaming system, refrigerators, and lights. Magnets quite literally light up our world, thanks to revolutionary scientists like Michael Faraday and Hans Christian Ørsted.Not to mention, we're also on top of a giant magnet, as the Earth itself is geomagnetic and has a magnetic north and south pole, without which our atmosphere probably wouldn't exist. They also enable the beautiful aurora to light up at the earth's poles. Besides the Earth, the Sun, too, is a giant magnet, with huge, and more complicated magnetic forces that can cause the arch shape of many solar flares. Looking at our own solar system, there are most likely many other geomagnets in the universe, so it is rather impossible to know what the strongest one might be (a candidate for the strongest known magnet field in the universe is 20 trillion times more powerful than a refrigerator magnet).