Magnets

Do magnets wipe data off of computers? Do they hurt other objects such as ipods or flash memory sticks. The answer is yes and no. Neodymium magnets are powerful. Very powerful they are the most potent magnets available to the public. To put this into perspective, one 1/4 pound magnet can lift 500 pounds of iron. If you were to stick this onto an ipod or flash drive nothing would happen. Flash memory doesn't have magnetic components and so nothing happens. A magnet powerful enough to disturb the electrons in a flash drive and damage it would also rip the iron out of your blood and so you would be to dead to notice what happened. On the other hand your average floppy disk will be completely wiped by a magnet as well as most magnetic hard drives. They also screw up your screen so as a rule of thumb just keep it away from your computer.