Categories: Alternative conceptions
A naive idea is that all metals are magnetic.
Quite young children are often familair with magnets and how they attract some metal objects (usually those made of iron or steel).
The only common metals that are ferromagnetic are iron, nickel and cobalt, but observed examples of metallic objects being attracted to magnets may be over-generalised to thinking all metals are magentic – even though common metals such as copper and aluminium are not magnetic (in this sense *).
(* In everyday life, and in introductory science education, 'magnetic' refers to ferromagnetism, rather than forms of reaction to a magentid field such as diamagnetism or paramagnetism.)
