`GE samarium cobalt magnet development`

Pre-history of high-BH-product permanent magnets. Tom's undergraduate field trip to GE research labs in early 1970s. Sets up the neodymium-iron-boron generational replacement.

There was my example of a neodymium-iron magnet. There's also samarium cobalt. Why are these permanent magnets important? You're all too young to know. When I was an undergraduate, we got a field trip to General Electric's research labs, and they were making samarium cobalt magnets. This was before neodymium-iron-boron had ever been invented. General Electric had a huge project to make samarium cobalt. The problem with samarium cobalt — it's about half as strong as neodymium-iron-boron, but it was much stronger than the old alnico magnets which were around in the 1930s.