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.
There are three types of magnets, permanent, temporary, and electromagnetic. A permanent magnet is a specific metal or alloy such as the rare earth magnet neodymium, or a simple ferrite bar magnet. These types of magnets are known as permanent because their magnetic properties are not simply turned on or off.