There are lots of people in this world who made this mistake before : they think where the red needle of the compass points at, is North Pole -- the home for Santa Claus and polar bears. Moreover, they don't think they made the mistake. When you ask them, they will tell you that their geography teacher taught them!
However, they didn't know that the North Pole their geography teacher told them is geographic North Pole (obviously it should be), whereas the place that the red needle points at is the magnetic North Pole (your science teacher will tell you later on).
** They locate in different places!!
There might be a little confusion in this part: the magnetic North Pole is actually the South Pole of the magnetic field of the Earth (or you can call it Southern Polarity).
It might be hard for you to understand it in the first minute because of the opposite wirds, but once you know that the opposite poles of magnet attract each other (just like positive charge and negative charge), and the red needle of the compass is north pole, you will figure out that it must point at the south pole of the Earth's magnetic field.
So now, we know that the Santa Claus is actually living at the geographic North Pole, closer to the magnetic North Pole (i.e, Southern Polarity). Don't get lost if you want to visit him!
Related knowledge:
- The Earth's magnetic field is not static, it changes direction at times (Because it is filled with liquid). Right now the magnetic pole moves 60 miles per year.
- Pole shift hypothesis suggests that the locations of the poles and the axis of rotation of Earth might shift rapidly and cause catastrophes such as Ice Age. (Though it has not been proven and is not being accepted by most of scientists, it magnetizes me!) If you have interest to learn about it, the movie "absolute zero" would be an appetizer for you!
