Polarity

In much of the popular writing on magnetic fields used in therapy, there is much discussion about polarity. This concept is taken from the convention used to describe the Earth’s poles – North and South. There are actually two types of poles on the Earth. Magnetic and geographic. The magnetic poles are not physically situated in the same place as the geographic poles. There’s confusion in the conventions used to describe magnetic poles. Normally, when someone is talking about the North Pole, meaning the one to which the compass points north, they are really referring to the North-seeking pole. That means the actual “North Pole” geographically is a magnetic South Pole. The compass needle’s North Pole is attracted to the magnetic South Pole. To avoid confusion, many people now use the term, the North seeking pole to be clear.

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To avoid confusion, and to standardize magnetic fields, measurement instrumentation, scientists and engineers use positive and negative instead to describe magnetic poles. The positive pole is considered the North-seeking pole, and the negative pole is considered the South-seeking pole.

Unlike electricity, magnetic fields do not have charge. This means the terms positive and negative do not carry the same meaning for magnetic fields as they do electrical fields.

From a physics perspective, magnetic poles do not have specific actions, stronger/weaker or energizing/relaxing. There is no good, repeatable scientific research to support a separate action for each pole. The issue of polarity is primarily focused on static magnetic fields, that is, permanent magnets. This means that permanent magnets may be applied to the body, regardless of polarity without significant concern for harm. Strong statements are made in the popular literature on polarity and have led people to be frantic about “getting it right” but until there is strong objective scientific evidence to support these claims, I remain unconvinced about the importance of proper polarity placements.

In addition, even if there is some basis for polarity differences, there are other problems in this concept. Every magnet’s fields bend over the sides and “reverse polarity.” This means that placing the magnets over the body will still provide the body with a bipolar exposure. Only if the magnetic system is large enough to contain a whole person, could this theory be tested. Small structures such as seeds, small plants or small animals may be placed wholly on a magnet or in a uni-directional DC electromagnetic field for testing purposes. So far, the results are not consistent or reproduced by other scientists. Individual experience is subject to an expectational bias, which can only be avoided by properly controlled experiments.

Humans are continually exposed to both polarities in any event. Most of the research using time-varied magnetic fields, pays no regard to polarity for the most part. Alternating current, of course, has alternating polarities. Pulsed magnetic fields can be designed to be positive and/or negative. No systematic differences have been discovered in one polarity versus another for time-varied fields either.

In magnetic systems that use alternating pole arrangements, that is, multi-polar arrays, a large amount of cancellation occurs, substantially reducing the field strength applied below the skin surface. Field strength therefore becomes important in getting strong effects. This does not mean effects are not possible, they just may take longer to achieve, if they don’t happen quickly otherwise. See the levels of pathology in the treatment section to understand how this works.