Science on This Day: November 22 | Magnetic Materials, Nerve Signals and Toy Story
November 22 brings together three very different stories about how science helps us understand the world: the magnetic behaviour of materials, the electrical signals that travel through our nervous systems, and the computer technology that changed animated films forever. It is a useful date for connecting physics, biology and computing, while showing students that scientific discoveries can influence everything from electronic devices to how we move, think and tell stories.
These events also offer a reminder that science does not happen in isolation. Researchers build models to explain what they observe, use technology to test their ideas, and often develop tools that allow other people to explore questions that were previously difficult to answer.
November 22, 1904: Louis Néel and the hidden order inside magnetic materials
French physicist Louis Néel was born on November 22, 1904. His research helped scientists understand that magnetic materials can behave in different ways depending on how the magnetic moments of their atoms are arranged. Néel received half of the 1970 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on antiferromagnetism and ferrimagnetism. The Nobel Prize website explains his contribution here.
For students, magnets can seem fairly straightforward. One end attracts one pole of another magnet and repels the other. Iron objects can be attracted to magnets, and magnetic fields can be explored using compasses or iron filings. But the behaviour of a material depends on much more than its visible response to a magnet. At the microscopic level, electrons have magnetic properties, and the way these magnetic moments interact and become ordered affects the material's overall behaviour.
In a ferromagnetic material, such as iron under suitable conditions, many magnetic moments can align in the same direction within regions called magnetic domains. This helps explain why such materials can become strongly magnetised. In an antiferromagnetic material, neighbouring magnetic moments tend to align in opposite directions. Their effects can largely cancel, so the material does not behave like an ordinary bar magnet even though it has an organised magnetic structure. Ferrimagnetic materials also have magnetic moments that point in opposing directions, but the opposing contributions do not cancel completely.
Néel developed important models to explain these different forms of magnetic order. This was significant because scientists needed to understand not only which materials were magnetic, but also why their properties differed and how those properties changed with conditions such as temperature.
Bring this into the classroom
Néel's work is an opportunity to move beyond the idea that every magnetic material works in the same way. Ask students to draw simple rows of arrows to represent magnetic moments. Have them compare arrows pointing in the same direction with arrows alternating in opposite directions. What would happen to the overall magnetic effect in each arrangement? What additional information would scientists need before using such a simplified diagram to describe a real material?
For older students, this can lead to discussion about how microscopic structure produces macroscopic properties. It also connects to materials science and technology, where controlling magnetic behaviour matters in electronic components, data storage and other devices.
The central question is a useful one for physics: How can the arrangement of particles that we cannot see determine the properties of a material we can observe?
November 22, 1917: Andrew Huxley and the electrical language of the nervous system
British physiologist Andrew Fielding Huxley was born on November 22, 1917. Alongside Alan Hodgkin, Huxley made major contributions to explaining how electrical impulses travel along nerve cells. Their work, together with that of John Eccles, was recognised with the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Read Huxley's Nobel Prize biography.
The nervous system allows animals to detect changes in their surroundings, process information and coordinate responses. When you touch something hot, for example, sensory neurons help transmit information that contributes to a rapid response. But what does it actually mean for a signal to travel along a nerve?
Hodgkin and Huxley investigated this question using the giant nerve fibres of squid. These fibres were unusually large compared with most nerve cells, making them particularly useful for measurements. By recording electrical changes across the cell membrane, they helped establish how the movement of ions produces an action potential, the brief electrical event that travels along a neuron.
The key is that nerve impulses are not simply electrons flowing along a wire in the same way they do through a metal conductor. Neurons maintain a difference in electrical potential across their membranes. When a neuron is stimulated sufficiently, ion channels open and close in a coordinated sequence. Sodium ions move into the cell during the rising phase of an action potential, followed by changes in which potassium ions move out. These movements change the membrane's voltage and allow the signal to propagate along the nerve fibre.
Huxley and Hodgkin combined careful experiments with mathematical modelling to explain these changes. Their work illustrates how biology, physics and mathematics can work together to answer a question about living systems.
Bring this into the classroom
This event works well when teaching cells, the nervous system, electricity or homeostasis. Students can start with a simple question: if a neuron is a cell, how can it send a rapid signal over a distance?
A diagram showing the movement of sodium and potassium ions can help students distinguish between the electrical signal and the physical movement of ions that produces it. For a more challenging discussion, ask why scientists might choose a squid's unusually large nerve fibre for experiments, and what limitations there might be when applying results from one organism to another.
It is also a good opportunity to explore the role of models in science. Hodgkin and Huxley did not merely observe that a signal existed. They used measurements and mathematical relationships to explain how it worked. Students can consider what makes a model useful, what evidence would support it, and how it might be improved.
The wider message is that the body uses electrical changes across cell membranes to transmit information, but understanding that process required experimental evidence, quantitative measurements and collaboration across scientific disciplines.
November 22, 1995: Toy Story changes computer animation
On November 22, 1995, Toy Story was released in cinemas. Produced by Pixar and released by Walt Disney Pictures, it became the first feature-length film made entirely with computer-generated animation. The film was not simply a new way to tell a story. It was also a major achievement in computing, mathematics, visual design and engineering. Pixar's history of the film and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' overview describe its place in film history.
Traditional animation had already shown how sequences of images could create the impression of movement. Computer animation brought a different set of challenges. To create a convincing three-dimensional scene, computers must represent objects mathematically, position them in space, simulate or approximate lighting, and calculate how surfaces should appear from a particular viewpoint.
An animated character is not simply a picture that moves across a screen. Its shape must be represented in a digital model. Animators need ways to control its movements and expressions, while the software must calculate how the scene looks from frame to frame. Surfaces, shadows, reflections and textures all contribute to whether a scene appears believable.
These calculations can be demanding. Each frame contains many visual details, and a film requires a large sequence of frames that must remain consistent as the characters and camera move. The technology and techniques developed for computer animation helped establish approaches that later became common across film, television, games and visual effects.
This makes Toy Story an accessible way to introduce computational thinking. Students may already know the characters, but they might not have considered the mathematical and technological systems needed to bring them to life.
Bring this into the classroom
Ask students to think about how a computer might represent a three-dimensional toy. What information would it need about the toy's shape, colour, position and orientation? How could a computer create the appearance of a soft surface or a shiny plastic object? What would need to change between two consecutive frames to make a character appear to turn its head?
For a practical activity, students could sketch a simple object from different viewpoints, then identify the information a computer would need to recreate it. Older students could investigate coordinates, vectors, geometry, algorithms or the role of rendering in computer graphics.
There is also a useful discussion about the relationship between science and creative work. The film's success depended on artistic choices, storytelling and character design, but also on people developing and using sophisticated computational tools. It shows students that mathematics and computing can support careers in animation, games, engineering, architecture and scientific visualisation.
The key question is: What mathematical and computational problems must be solved to make a digital world look convincing?
Using Science on This Day as a classroom warm-up
These three November 22 events can be used in different ways depending on your lesson. Louis Néel's work makes a strong physics starter, Andrew Huxley's research links biology with electricity and mathematical modelling, and Toy Story offers a route into computing and applied mathematics.
Rather than treating a historical event as an isolated fact to memorise, ask students to use it as a starting point for scientific thinking. They might explain a mechanism, interpret a diagram, identify evidence, compare a model with reality or suggest a new question to investigate. A short discussion can be enough to connect a familiar topic with the people and problems that helped shape it.
My November Science on This Day activity set makes this approach easier to use throughout the month. It includes 109 STEM stories across November, with an interactive HTML version, editable Google Slides, a filterable spreadsheet and a PDF version. Teachers can select events by date or subject, use the classroom display mode, and draw on the discussion questions to start conversations or check students' understanding.
If you want to try the approach before purchasing a larger collection, you can also browse the resources on The Teaching Astrophysicist store for free and paid materials across science topics.
What else happened around this date?
November has plenty more examples of how scientific ideas develop across disciplines. On November 23, physicist and chemist Johannes Diderik van der Waals, born in 1837, is remembered for work that improved the description of real gases by accounting for molecular size and intermolecular attraction. Henry Moseley, born on the same date in 1887, used X-ray measurements to show why atomic number, rather than atomic mass, provides the proper basis for ordering the elements. Both stories are useful for showing students how evidence can refine scientific models.
On November 24, Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species was published in 1859, setting out evidence and arguments for evolution by natural selection. The same date is associated with the discovery of the fossil known as Lucy in 1974, an important find in the study of human evolution. Apollo 12 also returned from its second crewed lunar landing mission with a splashdown in the Pacific on November 24, 1969. These events offer opportunities to discuss evolution, evidence from fossils and the scientific value of returning samples from space.
On November 25, students can explore the Great Storm of 1703, a historical example of severe weather and the challenges of reconstructing past events from records. The date also marks the birth of Julius Robert von Mayer, an early contributor to the principle of conservation of energy, and Albert Einstein's presentation of the final field equations of general relativity in 1915. These stories connect meteorology, energy transfer and modern ideas about gravity.
Looking ahead to December, the December Science on This Day collection contains 132 STEM stories across all 31 days of the month, again in several classroom-friendly formats. It can help teachers continue using short historical events as lesson starters, discussion prompts or quick links between curriculum topics.
Science history is especially useful when students see it as more than a list of dates. The stories of Néel, Huxley and Toy Story show that science advances through different kinds of work: investigating invisible structures, measuring living systems, building mathematical explanations and creating new technologies. November 22 is a compact way to remind students that scientific thinking reaches well beyond a single subject or classroom.
Thanks for reading
Cheers and stay curious
Oliver - The Teaching Astrophysicist
