If shrunken down to micron size, a compass needle could wobble. (Courtesy: iStockphoto/tobias machhaus) A tiny magnetic needle just 10 μm long could be used to create a magnetic-field sensor that – if ...

How does a magnetic compass work? Well, it’s all down to basic physics and human ingenuity. The key component of a standard baseplate compass is its magnetized needle, which is allowed to spin freely ...

At some point during our primary school careers, most of us probably constructed a simple compass, often by floating a ...

Some inventions are so simple that it’s hard to improve them. The magnetic compass is a great example — a magnetized needle, a bit of cork, and a bowl of water are all you need to start navigating the ...

A magnetometer is a device that measures magnetism: the direction, strength, or relative change of a magnetic field at a ...

A compass needle is essentially a thin bar magnet. If it were free to move in all three dimensions, a magnet would line up along any local magnetic field line. Field lines are graphical ...