Okay, so when you go to the south pole, you are not also going to north pole because that is located beneath Earth on the other side.
So a compass will only respond to the polarity of a magnet near your location.
No. A compass is attracted to both the north and south pole, because it's a magnet. If these poles are both in the same place, then it will be attracted to both equally.
Here's why: take a look at this image.
The compass in the middle is pointing both ways, with the north pole of the compass facing the south pole of the bar magnet. Now, if we rotate the magnet 90 degrees to be vertical, the compass will change direction unpredictably; it might follow the north pole or the south pole. But once the magnet is vertical, the compass is equally attracted to both poles again, so it balances back out to pointing east-west.
There is a much simpler problem though; if you buy an unweighted compass(they weight them for accuracy reason to due with latitude) and hold it vertically in the southern hemisphere, the southern end points down. In your model, we would expect the opposite, because the North pole is upwards. This happens in RE because the magnetic pole is technically through the earth.
(Edited after confirmation of south pole map from Tron, also to add clarity)
Recent Posts
