Bigger Is Not Always Better

When it comes to the term industrial magnets, people often associate it with size. In relation to size, it usually means huge. This is likely due to the fact that throughout most of the time period known as the industrial revolution; production was all about more work being done in bigger factories that produced larger things at a faster pace. It is the only adjective relating to size that is commonly used and actually larger than family sized. In this day and age, though, industry has changed faces greatly over the last one hundred years, and much of what has been considered progress in industry has meant smaller and more efficient. The microchip is a prime example of this.

When dealing with the tools and devices associated with commerce and production in the twenty-first century, it is often considered better to fit more into less space, thus making the most use of the space that is consumed. Computers processors today are smaller than a fingernail, yet they perform more computations per second than computers in the nineteen fifties could perform in an hour, and back then, a computer could take up several large rooms. That is no small task, considering that the old building-sized computers were the best we could do a mere sixty years ago. Time has moved quickly, and technology doubly so.

Industrial magnets used to be utilized mostly in generators and motors that were very large in order to perform very large jobs. There was not a great deal of need for small motors, nor was there a lot of need for small magnets. Today, the vast majority of industrial motors are tiny servo motors, cooling fans, miniature generators, CD and DVD drives, hard drives, and other small motive machines. As our technology gets more advanced and our world gets smaller, our machines tend to shrink with it. As the machines shrink, the various components that are needed to build them also gets smaller.

Magnets can still be huge. There is still a great need for large generators to provide the electricity we need to run our computers and small motors. We are even on the verge of driving electric cars, which use a huge assortment of magnets in various configurations to perform numerous tasks. It seems that our entire society is integrally connected to magnets. Perhaps that is indicated by the fact that our very blood is permeated with iron, which is the precursor mineral for? you guessed it? Magnetism.

Industrial magnets are simply smaller than they used to be, even though industry has grown by leaps and bounds. The shrinking trend makes one wonder if Texas is next in line for very large scale integration. There is a lot of wasted space in that state, and if the size of magnets and motors is any indication, the lone star state may soon be the size of Rhode Island.


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