On 8 Oct 2006 12:17:37 -0700, "FiNOH" wrote:

A 9 yr old had a question I couldn't answer. Where do magnets get
their power? Why doesn't it run out?

Despite all the good answers here, I think that your son is asking how
does something in the magnet reach out and with no apparent means
attract a piece of iron. And I think the answer is that no one knows.

It's observable, and observers can give lots of details, but that is
not the same thing as saying how it happens.

IIRC and part of this I clearly don't RC, there are two
inter-something forces, the small and the great xxxxx. One of them
is what makes atoms and molecules stick together, and the other is
magnetism. They can be described in detail, like similar poles repel
and opposite poles attract, and even more detail than that, but none
of this says how it happens.