Cola

[c130king]

[bastonjock]

nothing like a bit of banter in the morning maybee the instructor had some magnets up his sleve but the compass did move 15 deg,i tried it myself later and it only did it with a full can??????????

i think that c130 is correct tho,diet coke will only give you half of the deviation

[Québec 1]

The solution: Have some with two cans stand infront of the pedestal thereby cancelling out the deviation

[Catigale]

I think someone was messing with your head Baston - my guess is someone had either a magnet in or taped to the can.

[Andy26M]

You all are missing the critical question: Was the hull of the boat blue or white?

[Catigale]

Lets take a pole and see if we can ferrite out that answer

[Hardcrab]

For what it's worth, alunimum does exhibit a very, very slight magnetic attraction.

My proof:
I have a very sensitive gun powder reloading scale that incorporates a thin piece of aluminum mounted to a plastic balance poise.
Permanent magnets are base mounted on each side of this aluminum piece at the zero balance point.
The aluminum slug moving through the magnetic field gap will slow and stop the poise oscillations so as to quickly get a zeroed reading.
The scale can measure down to 1/20 of a grain.
(The perspective for this is 470 grains per ounce).

An aluminum can next to a compass?
No way.

[RickJ]

The aluminum slug moving through the magnetic field gap will slow and stop the poise oscillations ...

This effect is actually due to currents induced in the metal as a result of it moving in the magnetic field. It's not because aluminium itself is "magnetic".

The motion of the metal causes eddy currents to be induced in it, and these currents themselves generate a magnetic field that opposes the motion. It's the electromagnetic equivalent of friction (the energy is dissipated as heat in the metal).

The coke-can thing has to be some sleight of hand. Neat party trick though

Cheers, Rick