"The permanent magnet is like a small power house with hundreds of small generators spinning in the same direction and pointing in the same direction. These little spinning particles however do not actually produce magnetic fields, the field is produced around these particles for they are not in fact pushing out particles from their poles they are like a miniature earth they are collecting particles in at the poles. Even in a solid mass however the magnetic flux produced by such material would give very little in the way of magnetism. The power comes from they way the iron particles act as a conduit wrapping particles around themselves and pushing sub atomic particles that come into contact with them one particular direction."