_Magnetic Phenomena._--Low temperatures have very marked effects upon
the magnetic properties of various substances. Oxygen, long known to be
slightly magnetic in the gaseous state, is powerfully attracted in the
liquid condition by a magnet, and the same is true, though to a less
extent, of liquid air, owing to the proportion of liquid oxygen it
contains. A magnet of ordinary carbon steel has its magnetic moment
temporarily increased by cooling, that is, after it has been brought to
a permanent magnetic condition ("aged"). The effect of the first
immersion of such a magnet in liquid air is a large diminution in its
magnetic moment, which decreases still further when it is allowed to
warm up to ordinary temperatures. A second cooling, however, increases
the magnetic moment, which is again decreased by warming, and after a
few repetitions of this cycle of cooling and heating the steel is
brought into a condition such that its magnetic moment at the
temperature of liquid air is greater by a constant percentage than it
is at the ordinary temperature of the air. The increase of magnetic
moment seems then to have reached a limit, because on further cooling to
the temperature of liquid hydrogen hardly any further increase is
observed. The percentage differs with the composition of the steel and
with its physical condition. It is greater, for example, with a specimen
tempered very soft than it is with another specimen of the same steel
tempered glass hard. Aluminium steels show the same kind of phenomena as
carbon ones, and the same may be said of chrome steels in the permanent
condition, though the effect of the first cooling with them is a slight
increase of magnetic moment. Nickel steels present some curious
phenomena. When containing small percentages of nickel (e.g. 0.84 or
3.82), they behave under changes of temperature much like carbon steel.
With a sample containing 7.65%, the phenomena after the permanent state
had been reached were similar, but the first cooling produced a slight
increase in magnetic moment. But steels containing 18.64 and 29% of
nickel behaved very differently. The result of the first cooling was a
reduction of the magnetic moment, to the extent of nearly 50% in the
case of the former. Warming again brought about an increase, and the
final condition was that at the temperature of liquid air the magnetic
moment was always less than at ordinary temperatures. This anomaly is
all the more remarkable in that the behaviour of pure nickel is normal,
as also appears to be generally the case with soft and hard iron.
Silicon, tungsten and manganese steels are also substantially normal in
their behaviour, although there are considerable differences in the
magnitudes of the variations they display (_Proc. Roy. Soc._ lx. 57 et
seq.; also "The Effect of Liquid Air Temperatures on the Mechanical and
other Properties of Iron and its Alloys," by Sir James Dewar and Sir
Robert Hadfield, _Id._ lxxiv. 326-336).
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