Question

An electromagnet does not attract a piece of iron. True or False.

Answer 1

Hint: An electromagnet will either attract or repel or even have no effect on a piece of iron kept in its vicinity. This will be determined by the fact that, is there any field of force that can interact with the piece of iron and whether or not an electromagnet is able to generate such a field. We shall work about these conditions and then try to answer our question.

Complete answer:
It has been observed that, when a current is passed through a conducting wire, the current flowing through the wire generates a magnetic field. This property of the conducting metal wire is known as electromagnetism and the conducting wire is termed as an electromagnet.
An electromagnet is a temporary magnet which can act as a magnet only if a current is being passed through it. The power and range of this magnetic field is directly proportional to the current that flows through it, that is greater the current, stronger the magnetic field and vice versa.
Now, iron is a substance that shows signs of attraction when kept in a magnetic field. In this case, the electromagnet is also generating a magnetic field. So, the piece of iron will be attracted towards the electromagnet. Hence, an electromagnet can attract a piece of iron.

Hence, the statement given to us is False.

Note:
An electromagnet has several uses. Heavy duty electromagnets are used in iron ore fields to transport the ore from one place to another. Electromagnets are also used in scrapyards where old used metal substances which are mostly made up of iron are converted into smaller chunks for proper disposal.