I’m confused … does iron, copper, nickel, and zinc attract magnets or repel magnets?
Iron is usually attracted to a magnet. If a bar of iron is magnetized, One end of the bar will attract one pole of the magnet, and repel the other pole of the magnet. Copper, nickel, and zinc are not magnetic. They neither attract or repel a magnet, and they cannot be magnetized.
They are magnetic materials. Attract magnets. Unless they are converted into a magnet, such as an electromagnet (coiling wires around an iron bar), then the like poles will repel each other.
Although there are other much weaker types of magnetism, the one you are probably talking about is ferromagnitism. This is made with iron and only iron. You could add other metals to the iron but it will only dilute the magnetism. There is a duality or a north and south pole in magnets. They repel the same pole and attract the opposite. The latest I remembered is that you can in theory have just a north or south magnetic force, but none has ever been able to be done without the other in the lab or anywhere.
