the.com/magnetic pole
The place a compass lies to, pointing at a wanderer, not true north.
means The point on a planet (or any magnetized body) where its magnetic field lines dive straight down, vertical and absolute — not a fixed geographic spot but the shifting address of magnetism itself.
from 'Magnetic' traces back to Magnesia, a region in ancient Greece famed for lodestone deposits — rocks that mysteriously drew iron. 'Pole' comes from Greek 'polos,' an axis or pivot on which something turns, the same root behind 'pole star.' Married together, the phrase names the end-points of that invisible axis the lodestone obeys — an axis that, unlike the geographic poles fixed by Earth's spin, actually drifts, wanders, and occasionally goes for a walk across the Arctic.
- location
- drifts dozens of kilometers yearly across the arctic
- count
- every magnet has exactly two, no exceptions
- flip risk
- earth's poles swap every few hundred thousand years
- true north
- differs from geographic north by design, not error