Hey Ray: Magnetic money
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - Today's topic is money.
It buys us goods and services, but there is a little, scientific secret that the bills in your wallet hold.
You may already know that the U.S. Mint produces coins.
There is another bureau that makes paper money.
That is the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, and they print BILLIONS of dollars every year.
So what is the secret?
That paper money is magnetic!
You need a powerful magnet, like a rare earth magnet. It is also called a neodymium magnet.
That strong magnet shows that paper money contains something magnetic.
If you remember in the past, we did an experiment in the past showing how your cereal may be magnetic. Well, the same is true with money that "don't jingle jingle, but folds."
The money is printed on a special kind of paper. Actually, a paper that is so special that it is made specifically for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, and it is illegal for anyone but them to have that blank paper, too.
That paper is made of 75-percent cotton and 25-percent linen and has random red and blue fibers in it. Nothing just mentioned is magnetic, though.
The ink is where we find the metal!
There are green ink and color-changing inks on our currency, and some of the inks contain iron. Just like in our cereal experiment, that iron concentration is just enough for a powerful magnet like our neodymium magnet to cause the paper money to react, just not enough to jingle.
That is the secret to moolah being magnetic.