Question

Two identical bars, one which is steel and the other a magnet, are painted with the same colour. How can you tell which one is the magnet using only these two bars? (don’t break the bars)

Answer 1

One of the ways to tell steel bar and magnet bar apart is to SUSPEND both the bars. After a minute or so we can see one of the bars incline toward the north and south direction i.e. It becomes straight. This is a property showed by a magnet. While the other bar remains unchanged.
Hence, the bar which inclined is the magnet bar and the one which remained unchanged is the steel bar.
This is the most simplest way to tell a magnet and steel bar apart. It is easy to do and is safe too.

Answer 2

1. This can be verified by visualising the magnetic field of the both identical bars with some process by placing a white drawing sheet on the identical bars and sprinkling some iron filings on sheet now you can see the iron filings set into a pattern

*if you do this process for both bars you can identify the magnet.