By Cliff Potts, CSO, and Editor-in-Chief of WPS News
Baybay City, Leyte, Philippines — July 10, 2026 — 12:30 p.m.
If electricity is one of the foundations of modern civilization, magnetism is its silent partner.
Most people encounter magnets on refrigerator doors, tool holders, cabinet latches, or children’s science kits. Magnets seem ordinary because they are familiar. Yet magnetism is one of the most important forces in the electronic world.
Without magnetism, there would be no electric motors.
Without magnetism, there would be no generators.
Without magnetism, there would be no transformers, loudspeakers, hard drives, relays, or many forms of radio equipment.
Magnetism is everywhere in modern technology.
For most of human history, however, it was a mystery.
Ancient people discovered naturally magnetic rocks known as lodestones. These strange stones could attract iron. Later, people discovered that a suspended magnet would tend to point north and south. This observation eventually led to the development of the magnetic compass, one of the most important navigational tools ever created.
For centuries, nobody really understood why magnets behaved the way they did.
They simply knew that they worked.
The real breakthrough came when scientists discovered that electricity and magnetism are connected.
This changed everything.
Today we know that whenever electric current flows through a conductor, a magnetic field forms around that conductor. The field is invisible, but it is real. It can exert force. It can move objects. It can influence other electrical systems.
That idea is so important that it deserves repeating.
Electricity creates magnetism.
A simple wire carrying current becomes surrounded by a magnetic field.
The effect may be small, but it exists.
Increase the current and the magnetic field becomes stronger.
Wrap the wire into a coil and the field becomes stronger still.
Place an iron core inside the coil and the field becomes dramatically more powerful.
At that point you have created an electromagnet.
An electromagnet differs from a permanent magnet in one important way.
A permanent magnet is always magnetic.
An electromagnet becomes magnetic only when electricity is flowing.
Turn off the power and the magnetic field largely disappears.
This ability to switch magnetism on and off became one of the great building blocks of modern technology.
The telegraph relied upon electromagnets.
Relays rely upon electromagnets.
Electric bells rely upon electromagnets.
Many early telephone systems relied upon electromagnets.
Even today, countless devices depend upon controlled magnetic fields.
One of the easiest ways to see magnetism in action is inside a relay.
A relay is an electrically operated switch. A small electrical current energizes a coil. The coil becomes an electromagnet. The electromagnet pulls a metal armature. The armature closes or opens a separate circuit.
In effect, electricity controls electricity.
Before transistors became common, relays performed many of the switching functions now handled by solid-state electronics.
In fact, some of the earliest computers were built from thousands of relays.
They were slower than modern computers.
They were noisier than modern computers.
But they worked.
Click.
Clack.
Click.
Each sound represented information being processed.
Electronic Archaeology will eventually spend more time discussing relays because they sit at an interesting point between mechanical systems and electronic systems.
For now, it is enough to understand that relays exist because electricity and magnetism are connected.
The same principle appears in loudspeakers.
When an audio signal passes through a voice coil, a magnetic field is created. The field interacts with a permanent magnet. The resulting motion moves a cone. The cone moves air. The moving air becomes sound.
Music, speech, and radio broadcasts all depend upon this process.
Again, electricity becomes magnetism.
Magnetism becomes motion.
Motion becomes sound.
The chain is surprisingly elegant.
The same relationship appears in electric motors.
Current flowing through coils produces magnetic fields.
Those magnetic fields interact with other magnetic fields.
The interaction creates motion.
That motion becomes useful work.
Fans spin.
Pumps operate.
Machines move.
Entire industries function because magnetism can transform electricity into motion.
This lesson introduces one of the central themes of Electronic Archaeology.
Civilization is often built from invisible things.
We cannot see magnetic fields.
We cannot hold them in our hands.
Yet they surround us constantly.
Every motor.
Every speaker.
Every transformer.
Every relay.
Every generator.
All depend upon magnetic fields doing their work quietly and invisibly.
That realization brings us to the next great discovery.
If electricity can create magnetism, can magnetism create electricity?
The answer changed the world.
Next week we will explore induction, the principle that allows generators, power plants, and much of modern civilization to exist.
If this work helps you understand what’s happening, help me keep it going: https://www.patreon.com/cw/WPSNews
For more from Cliff Potts, see https://cliffpotts.org
References
Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2025). Magnetism. Encyclopaedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/science/magnetism
Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2025). Electromagnet. Encyclopaedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/technology/electromagnet
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory. (n.d.). What is magnetism? Florida State University. https://nationalmaglab.org
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