Which way is north?

When someone asked about teaching a compass course, I remembered the item in
the
Ask Marilyn" column in Parade Magazine this past Sunday.

Lets see if I can explain this in my own words and see who has any comments.

We know that if we set two bar magnets side by side, the positive pole of
one must line up with the negative pole of the other for them to stick
together. We also call the positive pole "North" and the negative pole
"South". So if the positive needle of the compass points North, the compass
needle must be aligned with the opposite poles of the Earth. So the
positive compass needle points to the negative pole of the Earth. That
means that the magnetic north pole of the Earth is at the Earth's South Pole.

So we now have a distinction between the "North magnetic pole" (in the
Artic) and the "Magnetic north pole of the Earth" (in the Anartic).

The only way that all of this could be wrong is if the negative needle of
the compass points north. I do not have a bar magnet available to me to
test my compass. Can anyone verify all of this?

YiS
-----------------------------------
Roman J. Smith
University of Notre Dame
(219)631-4624 Fax: (219)631-8223
E-Mail: roman.j.smith.13@nd.edu
------------------------------------
Assistant Scoutmaster, Troop 505
-I used to be an Owl
Committee Member, Ship 505

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