The geographic North Pole is the most northern point on earth. The Arctic geomagnetic pole is not steady but moves within the northern hemisphere. The two geomagnetic poles are by far not as accurate as the geographic poles. Nether the less, there are many expeditions made to observe and study the geomagnetic poles as well as studying the geographic poles.

The history of expeditions to the North Pole begins in the early 20^th century. In 1909 the first two men, Robert Edwin Peary and Matthew Henson, reached the geographic North Pole. The two American researchers are officially the first men to set foot on the North Pole but it could not be verified who was the first man to reach the North Pole. Also it is not scientifically backed up that the researchers reached the North Pole at all. Peary’s records are not accurate enough to verify the discovery moreover according to Henson’s memories he was the first to arrive at the North Pole and he claimed that he met Perry there. But none of this could ever be verified. Frederick Cook also claimed to have reached the North Pole. He said that he reached the pole one year before the two scientists but his claims turned out to be false when the discovery of Mount Mc Kinley from his side could not be verified.

In 1926 a group of scientists flew over the North Pole and in 1937 a group of Russian scientists flew to the pole and set foot on it. The first man to reach the North Pole by foot was Sir Wally Herbert in 1969. In 1958 a Russian nuclear-powered submarine reached the pole. It was the first ship to ever reach the North Pole. More and more countries started an expedition to the North Pole. In 2007 Russia claimed the North Pole to be on Russian territory because it would be part of Siberian continental shelf. But Denmark, Norway and Canada also have the right to raise territorial claims. It seems like the battle just began.

In 2007 two British TV reporters were the first man to reach the magnetic North Pole.

In 600 BC the history of magnetism began but people were only beginning to understand it in the 20^th century. Then they were able to use their knowledge about magnetism to develop technologies based on it. Magnetism was first observed by the Chinese in the 4^th century BC. They discovered that lodestone attracts iron and wrote research papers on the matter. Lodestone consists of iron oxide which is a chemical compound of iron and oxygen. It attracts other pieces of the same material and iron. In Europe the Greeks were said to be the first to discover the lodestone’s abilities.

In the 16^th century William Gilbert, an Englishman, was the first to investigate the phenomenon of magnetism. He also discovered that the earth itself is a weak magnet. Carl Friedrich Gauss investigated Gilbert’s discovery after his death. In the 18^th century Frenchman Charles Coulomb established the inverse square law of force. The law states that the attractive force of two magnets is proportional to the product of their individual fields and inversely proportional to the distance between them. Hans Christian Oersted discovered a few years later the link between magnetism and electricity.

In the 19^th century the theoretical foundation of the physics of electromagnetism was built. The theoretical foundation states that electricity and magnetism are two aspects of the same fundamental force field. In the early 20^th century the Curies, which were husband and wife, and Pierre Weiss examined the effect of temperature on magnetic materials. They observed that magnetism suddenly disappears in materials like iron above a certain temperature. They explained this by using the theory that magnetism is based on an internal molecular field which is proportional to the average magnetization spontaneously aligning the electronic micro magnets in magnetic matter.

Today’s understanding of magnetism is based on the theories of the two German scientists Ernest Ising and Werner Heisenberg. Their theory is called quantum electrodynamics which is about the motion and interactions of electrons in the atom. Heisenberg was also one of the founders of the modern quantum mechanics. All these scientists gave the world the opportunity to fully understand and use magnetism.