Time for my science fair knowledge to be relevant!
Ferrofluids form spikes because they are sensitive to magnetic fields. Magnetic fields aren't uniform, and are projected from magnets in 'field lines,' which are basically areas where the field is much stronger. Because the field is stronger in lines and gets weaker the further from the line it gets, the ferrofluid forms cones around the field lines.
Also, the more powerful the magnet, the more field lines it has, so you (should) get spikier ferrofluid on more powerful magnets.
the fluid is an oil filled with iron powder. iron is a ferrous metal. electrons spin around the atoms of metal because those atom's electron shell is complete and there's no where to go. this is what creates the phenomena of current flow. in some metals the electronic charge of the metal's atoms cancels out the charge of the electrons spinning around them. these are called non-ferrous metals. in ferrous metals, if enough electrons are orbiting the atoms in the metal, they begin to align and create a magnetic field. the reason you are seeing those cone shapes is a combination of the force of magnetic attraction and surface tension. you see, if the atoms become attracted to each other and say form a ball...every one of those atoms has a polarity, just like the earth. non of the atoms wants to align reverse polarity with another atoms. they want to align + to - to + to - and none of them want to be the atom on the outside with nothing on one of its poles. so they shift around all trying to get to the center of the mass or at least in alignment with a reverse polarity on each end so to speak and this in effect attempts to form a sphere. in the case of ferro fluids this sphere is deformed by the flux lines of the magnetic field supported by the electrons spinning around the iron in the fluid. the flux lines bend the sphere between each of its polarities. gravity is also in play here but compared to the force of magnetism its not really having a noticeable effect. in space without gravity this would look about the same except its would be slightly more symmetrical
UGH see even as long as that answer was, i still missed some stuff
ok so what are flux lines i guess i just glazed that one over
look you have to be imaginative for this part, id draw you a picture but god damn it im too drunk for that. use the pic for reference
when you think of what a flux line is you have to consider that for every electron orbiting an atom in the iron, there's a million billion others spinning is all different directions. but because of surface tension and the net charges of each atoms wanting to align positive to negative with each other, creating the sphere, there's this effect where the net chance for a number of electrons to align with each other is exactly the same throughout all the ferrous material. the only difference is the net magnetization at any given point.
so look at the sphere..it gradually gets smaller and smaller towards the edge. the net magnetization gets smaller and smaller toward the edge of the sphere. since the force of magnetism does not scale linearly against the force of surface tension, the effect is the squeezing cone shapes. even the earth is slightly conish shaped (well two cones on end) because of the flux lines generated by the magnetized iron at its core. gravity and surface tension want it to be a perfect sphere. magnetism screws that up. in the op's gif the surface tension is far outweighed by the forced of magnetism. for the earth the force of surface tension far outweighs the force of magnetism. i hope that makes sense/ is actually true and i understood it correctly.
Flux lines are just representations of the direction of a magnetic field. Like in that picture, right?
Basically, the surface tension of the fluid is fighting against the magnetic attraction of the magnets inside the fluid.
Surface tension wants the fluid to make a perfect sphere, but the magnetic field wants the magnets inside to form loops, like you see in that picture. The interaction of these two forces inside the ferrofluid (that cool **** in the gif) results in those little cones.
direction and strength...the further the lines extend out, the stronger the field (gauss)
just imagine that all the electrons spinning around those atoms are aligned with the flux lines and spinning in the same direction (CW or CCW). they do this because none of the electrons want to touch each other because theyre all negatively charged...so the easiest thing for them to do is all align in the same direction and collectively spin in the same direction toward the protons theyre being attracted towards. its really a mind **** when you think about it, but that is the path of least resistance for them. along the flux lines you will find free charged particles being rocketed thru space toward the center of magnetism....it they dont find any atoms to join on their journey, or get annihilated in a collision, they get propelled outward along the flux lines and thru space again. the aurora borealis is what happens when the particles traveling along the flux lines collide with the stuff in the atmosphere.
and yea you seem to have some how grasped the theory im trying to describe, terribly, with how these shapes come about.. i usually tend to keep this stuff to myself, because actually no one really understands magnetic fields...its a legit mysterious phenomena just like gravity. if you start to study quantum physics, attempts are made to explain this stuff..but jesus christ i barely understand that stuff doubt I could describe it in any useful way. its all about how the destiny of all particles is to decay into other particles which some how creates this entangled relationship between them, which is predictable on some level, so we come up with measurements to prove this spooky **** ...but believe me... NO ONE UNDERSTANDS WHY. all this crap im describing is just the combination of all the lectures ive sat thru, theories ive read and crap ive heard/seen on TV and the radio. I dont actually have a degree or anything, just work on magnets and tend to read a lot.
idk man im a university student. my one prof for an electricity and magnetism course told us about the interaction of electric fields. It was a breaking of Newton's laws in the manner that there cannot be action at a distance, but somehow at this miniscule level (like nano scale), there seem to be invisible forces pushing atoms about. but he said that the actual result is that there are like, photons or some tiny ass particles (dont remember) that interact with the atoms. These tiny particles rapid firing very fast, can eventually provide enough force to push something.
yea he's talking about gluons I believe...but why do charged particles that are simply spinning in phase with each create a magnetic field? does the spinning some how speed up the process in which gluons turn into particles/particles decay into gluons? there's a few theories out there...but thinking of gluons as this giant continuum seems to answer some questions....just like u push one gluon out of existance and another one pops up somewhere in space to take its place....and that somehow determines the destiny of all particles. thats where things get fuzzy for me. the stuff they are doing at CERN is attempts to understand that situation in more detail. but again they are just coming up with predictable measurements they can make based on observations theyve already made... no one can imagine what a magnetic field is, literally. ask your prof to try though might be interesting. print all this out and show him. im sure he'll find a least a dozen things wrong with what im sayin...but thats what its all about, you have to start somewhere...even if im 100% wrong
It's a mistake to think of magnetic field lines that way. You actually need a large group of field lines, and the density of field lines in some chosen area or volume gives you an idea of how strong the field is 'here' compared to 'there'. The field isn't stronger around a field line, because the placement of field lines is totally arbitrary. You could draw 10,000 field lines or 100. Take Blahblah's picture of the earth's magnetic field for example. You could draw 10,000 field lines, then pick some volume of appropriate size. You could imagine writing a program that would tell you how many field lines pass through your volume, and by comparing this density to the density in another volume, you have some information about the relative strengths of those two volumes.