Numerical simulation of non-central collisions of spherical magnets

Abstract

We present a computational model of non-central collisions of two spherical neodymium-iron-boron magnets, suggested as a demonstration of angular momentum conservation. Our program uses an attractive dipole-dipole force and a repulsive contact force to solve the Newtonian equations of motion for the magnets. We confirm the conservation of angular momentum and study the changes in energy throughout the interaction. Using the exact expression for the dipole-dipole force, including non-central terms, we correctly model the final rotational frequencies, which is not possible with a simple power-law approximation.