Where does a permanent magnet get the energy to continuously attract stuff from?

Answer 1

The energy in a magnet is like the energy of a book sitting on a table. The book has potential energy because it is 3 feet off the floor, but no energy is being expended to hold it up.

So there is potential energy in a magnet which is 1 inch from a piece of iron, but no energy is being expended if that iron is being held from the magnet by a piece of plastic for example.

Answer 2

There is no flow of energy when magnets interact. The force you feel is from either repelling of two like polarities or attraction between opposites. These forces are always there. They even act between a magnet and the earths magnetic field. This is why a compass works.
A magnet will lose it's strength over time. This is not because it's energy is being used up, but because the molecules within the magnet start to loose their alignment with the direction of the magnet.

Answer 3

If you have a spring anchored at one end, then attach a ball to the other end, and then pull on the ball, the spring will have energy stored in it. It will then not have to have an energy source to attract the ball back. The attracting force was provided by the original stretch which stored potential energy in the spring.

Just think of the magnet as having little stretched springs going out to anything attracted to magnets.

Answer 4

Actually, there is less energy then you think involve when a permanent magnet attracts things. Also, every time you pull something away from a magnet you are agitating the atoms of the magnet which imparts energy.

Answer 5

From you, perhaps.

Consider this. You take two magnets stuck together from a box. You exert some effort and pull them apart. In so doing, you expended energy to pull them apart.

Now that they're separated, potential energy exists between them, and is exactly equal to the energy you expended to pull them apart. If they're far enough apart, on a table per-se, the force between them is not enough to overcome the friction between them and the table. And they don't come together.

Push them a little closer to each other and suddenly they accelerate toward each other, crash together, and stick. As they accelerated all that potential energy you gave them turned into kinetic energy. When they crashed and stuck together again, the kinetic energy was turned into heat and sound.