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The compass seems like such a simple invention but it changed the world. In 1086 Shen Kua was the first person to write anything about the compass, centuries before any scientists had done any work on it in the West! The first compasses were probably tiny floating magnetic needles. They floated on water and spun so they pointed north-south. By the time Shen Kua was writing about them they had become complicated devices which could be used on ships to help with navigation at sea – needles floating in bowls of water don’t work very well when the sea gets rough! The Earth acts like a giant magnet, so just like you can have two bar magnets interacting the Earth’s magnet and a bar magnet interact.
The activity described on this page allows your class to make their own compasses.
Image The history of magnetism – the seven magnetic moments. Go Back to Curriculum Table |