Question: If a magnet is put under to much pressure, what will happen?

Giuditta Perversi answered on 12 Nov 2015:

It depends on the type of magnet, but usually if a material is magnetic at your normal pressure it will tend to lose its magnetism the more you pressurise it!

In my work I work a lot with magnetite (Fe3O4, it’s the same magnet with which you stick stuff on your fridge) and it stops being magnetic AT ALL not only if you cool it down lower than – 150 °C but also if you press it down 8000 times more than the ambient pressure!

The basic principle is that magnetism depend a lot on the type of atoms in your material and how they are placed around. Pressing forces the atoms to move, to sit around in a different way, and at that point everything is different!