Relative to its northern pole, pointing up, down, or somewhere in between, in classical mechanics, a magnet thrown through a magnetic field may be deflected a small or large distance upwards or downwards. The atoms that Stern and Gerlach shot through the magnetic field acted similarly. However, while the magnets could be deflected variable distances, the atoms would always be deflected a constant distance either up or down. This implied that the property of the atom that corresponds to the magnet's orientation must be quantized, taking one of two values (either up or down), as opposed to being chosen freely from any angle.