The kitchen magnet holds the family picture against the metal surface of the refrigerator. In its way, the magnet can be seen as the center of the home, the core of our lives.

The core of the Earth, our planet, is composed of metal. The Earth’s core is estimated to be 88.8% iron. Although the Earth is the densest of the planets in our solar system, every planet has a metal core. Even the gas giant Saturn has a core of iron. Metal is the heart of every planet.

Magnets are composed of metals. Some 2,500 years ago, our ancestors discovered the lodestone, a natural metal magnet. When the first voyagers on the seas of our planet suspended a lodestone from a string, they found to their amazement that the ends of stone oriented to the north and to the south. The first compass was born of the metal of the Earth and it was the magnet. Ever since, travel to far places has been facilitated by the simple metal of the lodestone.

After much trial, error and observation, the early voyagers determined that the south end of their lodestone pointed to the North Pole and the north end pointed to the South Pole. Their navigating minds had long observed one end of a lodestone attracts one end of another lodestone and one end repels the other. They scratched their sailors’ heads and wondered of these things on the barks of old, until one clear night under a full moon, a wizened grandfather of the waves said simply, “I guess our world is a lodestone too, and our Earth attracts the ends of our compass.” He was right.

The Earth, our planet, is a magnet, as is every planet, the Sun and every point bright in the sky of night. The universe is a sea of magnets and we are awash in its vast expanse.

What does it all mean?

Last week we traced the origins of the electricity we use in our homes and appliances to waves of electrons flowing between metal atoms and accelerated by spinning magnets in generators and other equipment.

What else are magnets doing?

We know that magnets exert force on themselves and each other to make the magnetic force of the lodestone. We know that magnets exert force on metals to make the electric force of the electricity that powers our homes. Our scientists tell us that all the materials of the universe respond to magnetic force. All the celestial bodies in our universe appear to possess metal cores, be themselves magnets and exert force on each other and all other materials.

As our navigators of old discovered from the first lodestones, each magnet has a north end and a south end; and between magnets, opposites attract (N to S, S to N) and similarities repulse (N to N, and S to S).

The logical consequence is that all the objects in the universe, including ourselves, are being attracted, repulsed and energized by magnets and magnetic forces.

Magnets and magnetic forces power the universe, keep us in place and cook the evening meal.

That’s quite a job for the simple kitchen magnet, but that little magnet and the family it holds are the center of our homes and our world.

You don’t have to look far to be surprised and astounded by what surrounds us.

Opposites do attract and similarities do repulse.

The force will be with you always.

Grandpa Jim