Horseshoe magnet

A horseshoe magnet is either a permanent magnet or an electromagnet made in the shape of a horseshoe (in other words, in a U-shape). The permanent kind has become the most widely recognized symbol for magnets.^: 2 It is usually depicted as red and marked with 'North' and 'South' poles.^: 3 Although rendered obsolete in the 1950s by squat, cylindrical magnets made of modern materials,^: 3,467 horseshoe magnets are still regularly shown in elementary school textbooks.^: 3 Historically, they were a solution to the problem of making a compact magnet that does not destroy itself in its own demagnetizing field.^: 2