Rohan believes a magnet pulls every metal thing, since he's seen it pick up nails and pins
Rohan believes a magnet pulls every metal thing, since he's seen it pick up nails and pins. He brings the magnet near his mother's steel spoon and an aluminium bottle, but neither sticks. Is Rohan's belief correct?
Who do you think is right? Pick one.
The answer: No, some metals do not stick
Why
Rohan built his rule from real evidence — nails and pins genuinely do jump to a magnet, so 'metal' looked like the whole story. The gap is that only a few metals actually respond to a magnet, mainly iron and things made with it (steel is mostly iron, which is why a steel spoon SHOULD stick — worth testing again), plus nickel and cobalt. Aluminium, copper, brass and gold are all real metals that a magnet cannot pull at all. 'Metal' and 'magnetic' sound like they should be the same test, but they are two different properties that happen to overlap for iron. Test: try the magnet on a one-rupee coin, a copper wire, and an iron nail side by side — only the nail responds, though all three are metal. Some metals do not stick: being metal is not enough, a magnet only pulls a small family of metals, iron chief among them.
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