Most of the magnets you run into every day have strengths on the order of militesla.
A 1T magnet would be 1000 times more powerful. [Or was it microtesla and a million times more?]
I had the privilege of messing with an old 1T magnet in a college physics lab.
It was unreal. You had to take all the metal out of your pockets and take off any jewelry prior to entering the chamber with the magnet. People with fillings in their teeth were issued bite guards and told to keep their mouths closed and their teeth lightly clenched.
Part of the experiment involved trying to hold an iron bar in the field. In particular, you held the bar between the poles aligned with the field, then the field was turned on. You then had to try to turn the rod like a doorknob. The field was so strong it was impossible to twist. To demonstrate how powerful the magnet was, a concrete brick was placed on one side of the magnet, and we all stood twice the distance from the magnet on the other side. A metal (tin) can was then released from our side of the magnet. The can accelerated past the poles of the magnet, then smashed into the brick (completely crushing the can) then was quickly peeled off the brick by the magnetic force and drawn back into the magnet, where it eventually found its way to the bottom pole where it stuck and was held strongly by the magnet. It was unreal/awesome.
We were told that the magnet would easily rip off earrings, leaving bloody torn flesh. If it ripped something metal out of your jacket, like a paperclip or even the zipper tab, woe be he who has the tab whip to the other side of the magnet then come boomeranging back at your eye or some other piece of soft tissue.
The correct general impression was left -- a 1T magnet is hugely powerful and can be quite dangerous if you don't know what you're doing and are not careful and mindful of what you have and are doing around it.
Source(s):
The magnet was one that was replaced from an old particle accelerator the university has on campus.
There was nothing wrong with it beyond it being outside spec for the accelerator, so they kept it for lab demonstrations.
