 So you might be wondering, do magnets generate magnetic fields? It's in the name, right, magnets and magnetic fields. Remember the bar magnet and ion filings experiment? The ion filings showed the magnetic field around a magnet, so magnets do have a magnetic field. However, in the last video, I said that magnetic fields are generated by moving charges. Magnets don't seem to contain moving charges, so how does this work? Everything is made up of atoms, that includes magnets. At the microscopic level, the electrons within individual atoms are spinning. It is this spin that generates the magnetic field of magnets. Spin is a form of movement, and so the magnetic field around a magnet is still generated by moving charges. So in summary, the magnetic fields in magnets are generated by spinning electrons inside of atoms. Physics gets very complicated at the super small scale. So for now, we'll just look at the macroscopic structure of a magnet. Not all materials are magnetic or even have the potential to be magnets. Ion, nickel, cobalt, and some rare earth metals have this potential. We call these materials ferromagnets. The magnetic field generated by individual electrons is very small and weak. But when a lot of them align, the effects get stronger. We call these regions where the magnetic field of individual electrons align, domains. If the domains within a ferromagnetic material aren't aligned, then the magnetic field cancels out, so the material doesn't have an overall magnetic field, and thus is not magnetic. If the domains align, however, then the material behaves just like a magnet. Domains is the reason why hitting or heating a magnet might break its magnetism. When a magnet is suddenly hit or heated up, the domains de-align, and thus the magnet loses its magnetism. You can re-align these domains by putting it inside a strong enough magnetic field. Some materials can become permanent magnets when you place it inside a magnetic field. That is, place a ferromagnetic material inside an external magnetic field, then remove that external field, and the material is still a magnet. We call these materials hard iron. If, however, when you remove the external field, the magnet loses its magnetism, then we call these materials soft iron. Ferromagnetic materials have useful applications in technology. Soft iron in particular is used in transformers, which is central to our daily lives, helping deliver electricity to houses.