What happens to the air when...?

Question

you try to put two magnets facing the same way together you know when you can't put the magnets together does something happen to the air between

also what happens to make a magnet join with anoter magnet or stick to metal?

Answer 1

Unless the air molecules between the magnets have an electric charge on them, they will be largely unaffected by the magnetic field.

Rather, the poles of a magnet produce a magnetic field between them.  You cannot see, hear, or feel this field, at least not directly, because it has little or no effect on your body parts.  However, this field has the capability of making a temporary magnet from some materials that have not already been magnetized.  Because opposite poles of a magnet attract and the field causes the temporary magnet to develop poles such that the magnets attract, the magnet can then exert a strong force on any such material that comes near it.  Once the magnet is removed, most materials will lose most of their temporary magnetism but some will retain a small amount.  Materials from which permanent magnets are made are chosen to retain a lot of this magnetism when the external field is removed.

Although air is almost completely unaffected by such a field, oxygen is very weakly attracted to a magnetic field.  This is not noticeable under normal room conditions, but when I was in physics class in college, one of my professors collected a small amount of liquid oxygen, which was a kind of grayish sky blue color, in a test tube by cooling it with liquid nitrogen.  The apparatus had an inflated rubber balloon containing the oxygen over the mouth of the test tube.  He then stuck the end of the test tube into a small amount of liquid nitrogen for a few minutes into the liquid nitrogen.  Holding the balloon, he then suspended the liquid oxygen near one pole of a very strong permanent magnet.  Although the attraction was only slight, it was enough to cause the test tube to deflect visibly toward the nearest pole of the magnet and to stick ever so gently.