If you have been working with magnets long enough, you have probably heard the term gauss. At first glance it seems to be a measure of the power of magnet. More powerful magnets have more units of gauss, right?

It is a bit more complicated than that. Let us take a look at just what the measure of gauss means in the real world.

Carl Friedrich Gauss

The unit of gauss was named after the German mathematician Carl Fredric Gauss. While he came up with quite a few mathematical breakthroughs, the got the naming rights for magnets because he used math to figure out how to accurately measure magnetic fields.

He also is said to have figured out how to quickly add the numbers 1 to 100 as an elementary school child, much to the annoyance of his teachers who were attempting to keep the class quiet.

Magnetic Fields

Without getting into too much detail, let us talk about what a field is in physics. Forces are easy to visualize, picture a tug of war and you get a good idea of what a force does.

Fields are a bit different. In order to best visualize a field, think of a flowing river. In a river, you have a large continuum of something, in this case water, that all moves in one direction. In that river, you can have different currents and eddies that move you in certain directions with respect to the bank. All the while, the river continues to flow in one overall direction. That is a field.

Magnets work by generating magnetic fields. In its simplest terms, a gauss is one line of flux, like a river current, in one square centimeter. Think of a small cube magnet where there is one magnetic line that travels from its north pole to its south pole.

Magnetic Field Strength

What does the unit gauss really mean? The magnetic field of the earth has a field strength of about .5 gauss. The field strength of a refrigerator magnet is about 10 gauss. That does not mean the refrigerator magnet is more powerful than the earth.

What you have to do is multiply the magnetic power (in gauss) by the size of the magnet. If you take 10 times the size of your small magnet, vs. .5 times the size of the earth, you will get an idea of what we mean.

The term size is a bit general. Field strength is highly dependent on geometry. There are plenty of detailed descriptions on the web of just how to accurately compute field strength.

Remember, when you see magnetic strength measured in gauss, it is highly dependent on the geometry of the magnet. Keep that in mind when you are magnet shopping on BC Magnets to accurately understand the power of the magnet you are buying.