The floppy disk works with the floppy drive, much like a VCR tape works with a VCR. With a VCR you can record from your television, and play the tape back at a later time.
A floppy drive can "record" from RAM to a floppy disk and "play" back this information later from the floppy disk. The record operation is called writing to the disk. The play operation is called reading from the disk.
Much like your VCR, the floppy drive has a read/write head which performs the read and write operations. This read/write head physically rests on the top and bottom surfaces of the floppy disk. The floppy drive also contains a drive motor which spins the floppy disk at 300 revolutions per minute.
To save data to your floppy disk, the read/write head in the floppy disk drive generates an electric pulse which magnetizes a portion of the disk. This "magnetized" space now contains your data. This data can be read over and over again, much like you play a VCR tape or this data can be "remagnetized" or rerecorded, much like you record over a VCR tape.
How much time does it take a floppy drive to do a read or write operation? On average, approximately 150 milliseconds or 1/6 of a second!