i've got to go with Tom and minime on this one. the compass is going to orient itself pointing towards the magnet and will therefore not have any tendency to be demagnetized (i.e. magnetized wrong). i have good sources, as my father is a physics teacher. also, if somehow the magnet were swiped across the needle while the needle was held in a fixed position and this were enough to magnetize it with the opposite polarity, it would, as David said, be off by exactly 180 degrees. i think if i get that reliant on the compass, to the point where i can't tell the difference between north and south, there's not much hope for me anyways, compass or not <img src="images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />