Unusual-shaped Magnets

Can one end of a magnet be split into, say 4 arms, so you have one common strong north pole and 4 less strong south poles. If so, what would the field patterns look like particularly if it were rotated rapidly around its axis of symmetry?
- David Johnson (age 70)
Perth,WA, Australia

Sure. In fact, you could take four bar magnets and glue their north poles together with the south poles pointing out at 90° angles. The field would just be the sum of the four separate fields, to a good approximation.  Rotating it would cause the field changes to have frequencies four times greater than those of a single dipole magnet.

Mike W.

(published on 06/16/2016)