Eddie Craig, age 9, of Oakridge, Oregon, for his question:

Who first discovered magnets?

Suppose you found a magnet on the ground. If your boots were fitted with iron cleats you could hardly miss it. Because, as you know, magnets tend to stick to certain metals. The idea that magnets are strewn around on the ground seems hard to believe. But it can be quite true. The earth has many bits of magnetized iron, and others fall down from the sky with so called shooting stars. These are called natural magnets, and people found them ages ago.

Nobody remembers for sure who found the first one. But in ancient Greece they gave the credit to a shepherd boy. He wore sandals with iron cleats and there was an iron tip at the end of his tall, curved shepherd's crook. The iron saved wear and tear on the stony ground. But among the stones there were some natural magnets. Of course, they stuck themselves onto the iron on his sandals and crook. His name was Magnes, and the magic stones that Magnes found were called magnets. Or so the old, old story goes.