Question

A permanent magnet
A) Attracts all substances
B) Attracts only magnetic substances
C) Attracts magnetic substances and repels all non-magnetic substances
D) Attracts non-magnetic substances and repels magnetic substances

Answer 1

Hint:
 Permanent magnets are those which produce a high magnetic field with low mass and they are stable against the influences which would demagnetise it. This magnetic field that helps them to stick to each other. Generally they stick to only a few metals having ferromagnetic properties such as iron.







Complete step by step solution:
A magnet which does not lose its magnetism after removing the influence of the magnetizing force is named as permanent magnet. In this magnet, domains all line up in a particular direction and have a pair of two opposite poles, named south and north pole. Even if we cut them into small pieces , then also each piece will still have both the north and south pole. Like other identical magnetic poles repel each other while opposite poles attract each other.
Few metals in nature always magnetise itself so as to be attracted to permanent magnets. For example iron, cobalt and nickel metals can form strong magnets and thus are attracted by permanent magnets.
Permanent magnet attracts only a few magnetic materials. This is because the orbitals are organized in parallel and a very few materials have such structural atomic freedom to adopt these arrangements. The electron orbitals in an adjacent piece of material will be pushed by coulomb force of the charged particles with parallel electron orbitals to follow the electron orbital directions of the magnet.
Therefore, A permanent magnet attracts only magnetic substances.



Therefore, the correct option is B.




Note:
The process by which these ferromagnetic materials (iron, cobalt and nickel) magnetize itself is called hysteresis. The basis by which hysteresis occurs is exchange interaction, that stabilises the orientation of elementary magnets in ferromagnetic materials.