[meteorite-list] NOT MAGNETISM (Was magnetism)+ (Was Pasamonte...)

[MexicoDoug at aol.com]

Hola Dave, Hey what gives.  Of course your 1500 passive 
meteorite hunters are confused to high heaven.  Because you 
are fighting a battle with more than the National Inquirer and 
the Sun to censure the accepted definition of magnetic in the 
American Heritage Dictionary.  Magnetic, magnetism, and
 magnetic properties are interchangeable words in accepted use 
as I have done, but not for your purposes.  So consider you 
may be the one confused, not the whole rest of the world, 
before demanding how English is spoken.

Then you dumped yout cast iron engine block on my head to 
clarify my correct use of the word magnetic which you said 
was "NOT CORRECT".  All I was talking about was a little piece 
of hematite!  Then you said hematite is not magnetic, nor was 
non-magnetized lodestone magnetic.  But my Peterson Field 
Guide to Rocks and Minerals says hematite is magnetic, and so 
does my Smithsonian Handbook of Rocks and Minerals say it can 
be; and my piece of hematite I am holding in my hand which 
started this whole thing isn't lying.  Let me quote the 
hematite from Peterson:

"Usually even red grains are slightly magnetic.", (and then, 
when heated)..."becomes darker and strongly magnetic."

Smithsonian: "This mineral may become magnetic when heated."
And interestingly the Audubon guide says it's "lack of 
magnetism distinguishes it(hematite) from magnetite."

I agree that normally hematite as found is normally weakly 
magnetic at best, or perhaps not magnetic at all ... that was 
precisely my original point you leached onto and had me 
clarify!

And if we read page 42 of the Audubon Society Field Guide to 
North American Rocks and Minerals, we find a statement that is 
quite in sinc with everything:
"A few iron-bearing minerals will respond to a magnet in 
varying degrees or may be natural magnets such as lodestone, a 
variety of magnetite that has been used and studied for 
centuries.  Franklinite and some varieties of hematite are 
weakly magnetic, and become more strongly magnetic if they are 
heated"

Do you think if we heat up all our pieces of hematite we will 
get some stronger permanent magnets from them?  Or perhaps 
they will be more strongly attracted to a magnet:)

I never called Hematite a magnet.  You don't have to be a 
permanent magnet to be magnetic, there are several types of 
magnetism and they are not created by a NASA conspiracy.  They 
are right there in the field guides and popular dictionary.  
It can be magnetic when it exhibits magnetic properties, which 
according to the field guides and dictionary are all correct 
useage for the word "magnetic".

I am sympathetic to the problem you describe regarding 
sensationalist fires, flaming glowing stones on the ground, 
moon basalts, etc., but don't get too rabid on me on this 
one.  You'll need more than Michael Blood "Go, David" post to 
back you up and constitute an unbiased reference, especially 
since that other respected opinion has ideas which have 
severely clashed with my own, all in good fun, of course.  He 
still, for example is baffled why people get huffy about 
meteorite-list spam, simply because he doesn't mind removing 
such spam.

Here the confusion seems to be with the "people in the know", 
and not with all the rest that you are re-educating.  Perhaps 
Michael and you can put together a program to reeducate the 
English world to censure an accepted definition of magnetic 
because it is "confusing at best" according to you guys, but 
why not start with the word meteorite if you are going to take 
that route, because my opinion is that meteor- sounds too much 
like atmospheric since it is from the same root as meteorology 
and greek root from sky.  Maybe meteorite should be called 
Kosmoite (Kosmoid?), or ETite, instead... This is of course as 
preposterous as the censure you and Michael recommend.  
Perhaps talking about magnetism and its different forms and 
what true properties meteorites do have will be a better 
approach for all those you feel are not correctly educated out 
there!  Or is your true goal to shut down the national 
Inquirer - that's not gonna happen.  Plus it is a US First 
Amendment right, even for stupid and ignorant people!  Can we 
just stick with the Audubon field guide idea of magnetic, and 
when the situation calls for it of course use the appropriate 
clarity.
Saludos, Doug
PS, Also, how you ran with my hematite comments and along the 
way they have inappropriately been embellished to possibly 
suggest that using the word magnetic instandard English as 
intended means all meteorites are magnetic by any 
definition....No way José, I won't even sit for that. 
Your point is fine with regarding meteorites not occuring as 
natural magnets.  Nor hematite, nor magnetite except 
lodestone, It doesn't require NASA to explain to the huddled 
meteorite hunting masses, and I will be sure to keep it 
straight if there is every a chance for a problem in this 
respect, which I don't anticipate at the moment.



From:    David Freeman <dfreeman at fascination.com> 

Dear Doug;
I think my point  here is:    I have about 1,500 folks in SW Wyoming, 
Colorado, Utah, and Michigan;  involved in some passive form of hunting 
rocks that may have fell from the sky (meaning non-magnetic
meteorites).
I don't know where they get the initial idea from (... ;-) ), probably 
from the University of Wyoming's  traveling NASA Space Rock Education 
Program, but, fact is about one third of those that initially make 
contact with me here locally seem to think that meteorites ARE magnetic. 
They burn all the way down to the sage brush too.  Even caught the 
Great Lake States on fire in 1871! ...it glowed in the dark when we 
brought it in the house. The cat seen it talk.
One of the down sides is that if the specimen doesn't pick up a paper 
clip, they tell me horror stories of just leaving the suspected (by me 
to be possibly) meteorites behind (seriously this has happened more than 
a few times).
Another of my favorite fantasies is that it landed on the top of White 
Mountain, just over the hill. Well, I just drop what I'm doin' and go 
lookin'!
You tell me..... It's hard enough to dispel the glow-in-the-dark, 
caught-the-field-on-fire, only-my-basalt-comes-from-the-moon grand 
illusionists with out help from the meteorite community. Do you tell 
others to hunt for your "magnetic meteorites"?  ...worse yet, do you 
hunt magnetic meteorites? Geezh! Diamond meteorite here we come!
We can now feel safe in using our compass to point to meteorites as we 
saunter about the desert? Be a lot of undiscovered lunar and martian, 
and L, LL's out there.

It is a shame that those in the know, meaning us here vern; can't help 
the problem instead of add to the confusion. What a urban legend to 
start, or even fuel....magnetic meteorites. New field testing apparatus 
for  meteorites, a paper clip on a string! On the other end of the new 
style of detector, you put a safety pin to attach the device to your 
shirt ...and to hold the paper with yer name on it, ...in case we get 
lost and confused in all that magnetism from a strewnfield.

Could we have a show of hands, is it fair for someone that should know 
better to term meteorites as magnetic, and accept it as permissible?

Next story, drowning fishes, flying with wax wings, and the Earth is 
only 5,000 years old (revisit # 523).

>From the Western front of Galaxie-Meteorite-Country (meaning east of  
Utah),
Dave Freeman (already on a string, and pointing south)

MexicoDoug at aol.com wrote:

>Dave "Magnetic Personality" Freeman asked:
>
>>...car engine blocks...made of iron but not magnetic...
>>hematite, magnetite (except lodestone) not magnetic...
>>...Incorrect use of word magnetic...
>>Could you clarify the use of "man is it magnetic"?
>>
>
>"Magmatic Personality" Doug responds:
>
>Well, aren't you being a stickler!  It's Ok to call
> disoriented kitchen sink variety iron magnetic!  I thought
> engine blocks were made mostly from aluminum nowadays, so I
> agree those wouldn't be very magnetic, unless you put it in
> the context of passing a directional electrical current
> through them and voila, electromagnet!
>
>If I must explain myself, I guess I would have to clarify
> the "man it is magnetic!" to be:
>
>"Fellow males and females of the Homo sapiens sapiens
> subspecies, when the piece of suspected hematite is
> introduced into a magnetic field created by a strong
> permanent ferromagnetic material at ambient conditions, the
> specific sample of suspected antiferrimagnetic hematite
> exhibits a statistically significant paramagnetism not
> observed even weakly in the other samples collected in the
> same locality under apparently similar conditions raising
> suspicion that the assumption of similar sample histories
> could be wrong, or could be a "random" statistical
> fluctuation.  The adjective magnetic, thus, is perfectly
> correct to use to describe the phenomenon produced when the
> listener has been warned in context that the magnetic
> properties are induced by the magnetic field of the rare
> earth magnet, as was patently clarified."
>
>Now when you say a magnet is magnetic, I'll not be a pain in
> the ass, and agree with you as I muse what this means in the
> total absence of infrared radiation or other heat generating
> sources.  The maglev train engineers could probably clarify
> that better.  The point being I understand from context you
> mean at ambient conditions when nothing funny is going on.
>
>Your steel engine block may not be magnetic now, but if you
> touch your meteorite cane's magnet to it, it shall be, though
> it won't become a permanent magnet unless you magnetize it,
> which isn't very hard to do.  But it is always magnetic in
> ambient conditions when in a magnetic field.  Such are
> paramagnetic materiales...
>
>And the fact that many geologists choose to distinguish "being
> attracted to a magnet" vs. "attracting magnetic elements" is
> a convenience, but certainly not a reason to call the use of
> the word "MAGNETIC" incorrect. Your beef seems more that I
> didn't specify whether it was a permanent magnet or not. 
> That's a different question, and rather than being correct or
> incorrect, it is simply an unknown in my case.
>
>Wait...I checked it.  It is a very weak permanent magnet and
> thus correctly "magnetic" even by your English useage
> convention.  The test I just did was: a non-magnetized cold
> rolled steel chisel as the control and the sample as the
> unknown.  Chisel failed to orient iron filings from my latest
> plumbing project mess, but the sample oriented them, proving
> it produces a very weak magnetic field.  Whether this was
> present before I briefly tested it with the meteorite cane in
> the field, I don't know, as I suppose it is worth
> investigating whether that the rare earth magnet could have
> magnetized it.
>
>And finally, when a permanent magnet produces a magnetic
> field, it's usually not worth getting philosophical on
> whether the permanent magnet is attracting the sample, or
> whether the sample is attracting the permanent magnet.  I'll
> stick with "magnetic" unless my communication becomes
> ambiguous (let alone incorrect!) for a specific item or some
> rabid geologist threatens to beat me up.
>Is that clear now:)
>Saludos MagmaticDoug
>
>Subj:    Re: [meteorite-list] Pasamonte magnetism 
>  Date:    9/7/2004 1:35:20 AM Eastern Daylight Time 
>  From:    David Freeman <dfreeman at fascination.com> 
>  To:    MexicoDoug at aol.com 
>
>Dear MexicoDoug, and all;
>I see the phrase "...man is it magnetic" used below.   I find that most folks use "magnetic" in meaning the rock is attracted to a magnet...and that is a non correct use of the word.  A magnet is magnetic, as is natural lode stone.  Car engine blocks although made of iron, are not magnetic. Hematite, magnetite (except for lode stone), and banded iron 
>formation (iron ore) are not magnetic.
>Could you clarify the use of "man is it magnetic"?
>
>Magnetic personality,
>Dave F.