Trending: ‘magnetometer’

Lookups spiked 11,800% on June 28, 2022

Why are people looking up magnetometer?

Magnetometer and mag trended sharply in lookups following assertions, made by a witness testifying before a Congressional committee, that Donald Trump had requested metal-detecting machines be removed just prior to the insurrection on January 6th, 2020.

"You know, I don't f'ing care that they have weapons. They're not here to hurt me. Take the F'ing mags away. Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol from here. Let the people in. Take the F'ing mags away.” — Donald Trump on Jan. 6, per Cassidy Hutchinson
— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) June 28, 2022

What does magnetometer mean?

We define magnetometer as “an instrument used to detect the presence of a metallic object or to measure the intensity of a magnetic field.” We do enter mag as an abbreviation (a shortening of such words as magnesium, magnetism, magneto, and magnitude), but do not include magnetometer as one of its meanings, due to this sense being relatively uncommon (something that could change in the near future).

Trend Watch is a data-driven report on words people are looking up at much higher search rates than normal. While most trends can be traced back to the news or popular culture, our focus is on the lookup data rather than the events themselves.