How does the temperature of magnets affect their strength?
When playing in my backyard with a magnet to collect ferromagnetic minerals, I sometimes wonder why it seems to pick up more minerals when it's colder. That is why I chose to do an experiment to answer the question: how do the temperatures of magnets affect their strength? My hypothesis is that the colder the magnet gets the stronger its magnetic field will be and that the hotter it gets the weaker the magnetic field will be. I also hypothesize that at certain temperatures the magnet may irreversibly lose some of its magnetic strength. In my experiment, I measured and compared the magnetic strength of a ceramic magnet and a neodymium magnet at room temperature, when heated up in boiling water and in the oven, and also when chilled in the freezer and in dry ice. My experiment seems to confirm the hypothesis that a colder magnet has a stronger magnetic field than when it is hotter. Both magnets also experienced irreversible loss in magnetic strength when exposed to extreme temperatures past their maximum operating range.