Introduction Have you ever wondered how a compass works? Traditional compasses (not the digital kind found in smart phones and other devices) are tools that take advantage of a natural feature of ...

If shrunken down to micron size, a compass needle could wobble. (Courtesy: iStockphoto/tobias machhaus) A tiny magnetic needle just 10 μm long could be used to create a magnetic-field sensor that – if ...

Does it matter if you put a video camera near your magnetic compass that is used for navigation? The theoretical answer is "yes." But the practical answer? "Probably not." Now for a detailed ...