Record-Setting 100+ T Magnetic Field Achieved At Los Alamos 166
New submitter schrodingersGato writes "Researchers at the Los Alamos campus of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory achieved a record-setting 100.75 Tesla magnetic field. To do this, scientists placed a resistive magnet (a sophisticated electromagnet) coupled to massive bank of capacitors within another magnet fixed at a 'lower' magnetic field. A short-lived pulse two million times stronger than the Earth's magnetic field was generated. The magnet itself made an eerie sound as it was energized (video). Prepare for the birth of Magneto!"
Re:EAT IT, Thomas! (Score:3, Insightful)
Sadly, there is an award named after Edison and he gets all the attention in schoolbooks. Seems Edison's slow, amateur progress from a telegraph addict to inventing one of the least efficient light sources known to man is preferable to teaching about the 'madman' who repeatedly did the 'impossible' and established the technological foundation for the majority of modern age.
Probably just a bunch of teachers scared about what the middle-school science fairs would look like if Tesla had been part of the lesson plan...
Re:Interplanetary Space? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Interplanetary Space? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a transient field generated by an electric current that was created through the discharge of capacitor banks.
If you're going to pour on the snark, you could at least read enough of the article to understand that, while a capacitor bank is used in establishing the magnetic field, the primary energy storage was from a motor-generator that stores 1.2 GJ of energy for the experiments. So, while I agree that it's frustrating to hear half baked ideas for applications of exciting new science to pet science fiction dreams, doing so in a confrontational manner does little to actually enhance the knowledge of the folks making those sorts of suggestions.
Re:Interplanetary Space? (Score:5, Insightful)
Does anyone know how standard magnetic fields are generated, or at least bother to take a look at the pretty pictures in the article? The 100T that was quoted was undoubtedly in the center of the giant metal solenoid (new buzzword for the pseudoscientists out there!). To "protect" a space vehicle from more science words using this specific methodology basically means building a giant metal sewer pipe around every space shuttle to begin with.
This in itself shows a clear lack of understanding of how magnetic fields work. Magnetic fields are closed loops: what that means is, if there is a 100T flux through the middle of the magnet, there will also be an intense magnetic field curving back around the outside of the magnet (this is middle-school physics here). So if you ran the magnet through the center of the ship (and had sufficient power to leave it on, or hell a permanent magnet would also work), it would create a magnetic field that would extend around the entirety of the ship, which would deflect and charged particles stream that got near the ship (except at the ends, where like the Earth's north pole, the field would be parallel to incoming particles and wouldn't be deflected). Indeed, that design would be exactly identical to the Earth's magnetic field.
Also, the EMP effect would be non-existent if you could keep the magnet charged (assuming you built up slowly), so that point is... well, not relevant to the posters question (he didn't say this design would work, only asked how strong the field would need to be in general). And your third point is just being snarky. He asked an interesting hypothetical question, and you answered snarkily and, ironically, in a way that revealed your own ignorance.
Re:Interplanetary Space? (Score:4, Insightful)
Good point.
But the snark is there for a reason. He posed a silly thought, and was instantly modded to +3 with worthless comments otherwise. I post something factual with a shit attitude, and everyone spends additional effort trying their best to prove me wrong. Which one got the general public to do more thinking? Even the other (non AC) response to mine tried to at least mention some high school physics and bring up regimes where my EMP example might not completely hold.
The real problem isn't that comments are misleading, but that too many people blindly eat up whatever sounds important or right without doing their own due diligence, as OP demonstrated first hand.
There was a link on ./ a week ago regarding online comment sections being completely worthless. It was almost ironic that it was posted in ./, probably best known for its comments sections, and I refuse to let the same thing happen here without a fight.
Ming