How does magnetic tape memorise previous materials.

[TheWaiter]

Hi everyone,

I am in the process of doing my science fair and I have almost finished, when I stumbled upon a big question relating to my subject. 

I am doing an experimental project with the subject "How your immune system uses it's memory to fight the flu", majority of my information including the experiment coming from here;  https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project-ideas/HumBio_p036/human-biology-health/immune-system-memory#procedure

I have a question about the experiment, in short for the experiment we doing consists of putting some magnetic tape tied up with a plastic cover and put it in a jar filled with iron fillings and salt. (the magnetic tape being the anti body and the iron fillings being the pathogens). We are then going to record how much iron fillings the magnetic tape will pick up from that combination and apparently, there should be an increase into the amount of iron fillings picked up by the magnetic tape. over time, meaning that the magnetic tape is getting used to the iron fillings and picking more of them up just like a flu shot, the more our body is used to a certain virus, the easier it get rids of it.

Therefore, my question is how can the magnetic tape memorise and pick up more iron fillings over time? How can the magnetic tape get used to the iron fillings? 

 

Thank you for reading and I hope I can find a response to this question, I have tried everything to find out why but at the moment, forums are the best way to go. 

 

[Raider5678]

I believe this is because some of the magnetisim is "rubbing" off on the iron filings.

Try testing it twice.

Once with the same magnetic tape twice, and once using two separate pieces of magnetic tape each time.

My hypothesis is that the second experiment will result much like the first, pointing to the idea that the iron filings are actually getting slightly magnetized.