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I was wondering if there is any way to stop the magnetic field, without having the insulator turned into magnet. Let me present this as a simple case, there is a magnet to the left and a piece of iron to the right, is there anything that I can put in between to stop the magnet from attracting the iron piece, provided that the insulator won't turn into a magnet as well?

I am open to all possibilities, any materials, electric fields or anything that can stop the magnet field without harming the magnet or the iron piece are welcome.

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Mu-metals are your best bet, though superconductors are useful in some situations.

You can think of mu-metals as redirecting the magnetic field, rather than neutralizing it. So if you just have a flat piece mu-metal between the magnet and your piece of iron, you'll still get a reasonable amount of magnetic field -- it just had to "go farther" to get to the iron, so it will be weaker. The usual design for shielding is a box enclosing whatever you want to shield.

Bringing a superconductor close to a magnet, on the other hand, will simply cancel out changes to the magnetic field inside the superconductor itself. This is typically less useful for your problem, but it might be applicable for other applications you may need. In particular, if you need fields eliminated from a cavity inside a material, this could function better than the mu-metal.

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  • $\begingroup$ You answer is great, but mu-metal is more a good conductor redirecting than an insulator. Do you know about any good insulator material? Material which tend to make the magnetic field to circumvent the material instead of going through. $\endgroup$
    – Adrian Maire
    Commented Apr 4, 2018 at 7:46
  • $\begingroup$ how do you expect a magnetic field line can "circumvent" the material without being "redirected"? There's no such thing as a field line just "ending", so the only thing you can do is redirect it. There's only two ways to do that. First, with mu-metals, second with superconductors. both will "become magnetized" in the field. (the super conductor will generate surface currents from the magnetic field, and those currents will generate their own magnetic field that will exactly oppose the magnetic field lines entering it). $\endgroup$
    – Joseph Summerhays
    Commented Apr 7 at 13:31
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There is no material that can fully block a magnetic field, however there are materials that can re-route magnetic fields and can act as a "magnetic shield". These materials would typically be materials with a high magnetic permeability such as air. For more information, look here.

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  • $\begingroup$ The link you provided literally lists air as NOT being a good way to redirect magnetic field lines because it does NOT have high magnetic permeability. $\endgroup$
    – Joseph Summerhays
    Commented Apr 7 at 13:06
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About magnetic shielding I'm not a sci Fi guy for speakers try a nice mouse pad and the faraday tape and then layer the 2. 3 layers of just the mouse pad on a piece of square tubing and a refrigerator magnet dose not stick to the tubing and if you put that tape with the funny name inbetween each layer and on the outer sides its about as good as I can find to protect a PC from a powered bookshelf speakers or the x box in the trunk of a tunner car with those big a speakers !!??! I don't know if it will stop the electric mag field but it will stop a magnet from sticking to any metal parts ? Ever see what rail dust from a train can do to a speaker with magnets that big 🥺 hope I help !?! It helped my stuff !! Or a welding shop that dose a lot of grinding !?! Not really an answer!👀

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  • $\begingroup$ As it’s currently written, your answer is unclear. Please edit to add additional details that will help others understand how this addresses the question asked. You can find more information on how to write good answers in the help center. $\endgroup$
    – Community Bot
    Commented Dec 8, 2023 at 5:20
  • $\begingroup$ You should fix your language and take it seriously $\endgroup$
    – MrDBrane
    Commented Dec 8, 2023 at 5:30

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