Full disclosure dept.: a compass on the sun

[Hari_Seldon]

In yesterday’s Science Times in an article about the current feeble solarmax, the following appears:

If you had a compass on the Sun’s north pole and it was pointing before solar maximum, it would be pointing south after solar maximum. (Actually, the compass would vaporize.)

In fact a compass at the magnetic pole would point straight up or straight down. But that parenthetical remark just tickled my funny bone.