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Educational Links of Interest


 "Rally Band™" 30 Performance Series Review

A review of the patented "Rally Band" by Ace Magnetics, a company that specializes in magnetic bracelets for the sports enthusiast.

Review: AceMagnetics.com   - Ace Magnetics (http://AceMagnetics.com)

Magnetic Sports Band/ Bracelet Review: "Rally Band™" 30 Performance Series "Opaque Black"

I have been hearing about magnetic therapy for the last decade. A few years ago a friend of mine was opening up a Wellness Center to sell all kinds of magnetic and wellness products and supplements. She invited me along on the ride, to sell right along side with her. I tried it out for a year or so, but my life...Click Here to Read On.....

Posted by Jay Roberts at 05:37 PM | Permalink

Hi there,

I will try to put this concept simple. Let me know it I go to far.

To understand magnetism at its root, you must look deep into the matter. You must go as far as the atom.

The atom is the smallest entity of matter possible.

Now, if we look even deeper, you will find that the atom is composed of a core (nucleus) and tine particles spinning around the core (electrons). A bit like planets orbit around the sun.

In an atom, the components (electrons and so on) are electrically charged, just like the electricity that runs in your home.

If you have followed me, than we can start talking about magnetism.

A little bit of history to put things back into place. Magnetic effects have been noticed a long long time ago. But these effects were not very well understood. We needed to wait for a guy called Micheal Faraday to explain the basic of magnetism.

Faraday found out that magnetism is closely related to the electricity. He noticed, through a series of experiments, that if you run electricity in a wire, a magnetic field is developed from it, just like with permanent magnets. If you stop running the electricity, the magnetic field disappears.

This is important to understand the basic concept of it. In short (because I already wrote long enough), a magnetic field is produced when charged particles are in motion.

Now to come to what you probably had in mind at first. A magnet, being composed of atoms, which are composed of charges particles in motion, creates a magnetic field. In a permanent magnet, the magnetic field developed by each atom align itself with the others. Therefore, the magnetic field developed by the magnet is only the sum of the magnetic field created into each atom.

In reality, any type of matter can become a magnet, as long as the magnetic field created by each atom aligns to the next one.

I hope you followed my explanation. And don't hesitate to ask some more questions. This is a great place for you to learn. As a reminder, specifying your age is probably a good idea, since we know that we are not talking to a Dr. in physics.

Cheers

 

Physics Forums

Posted by Jay Roberts at 11:22 PM | Permalink

PARIS: Tiny magnetic discs just a millionth of a metre in diameter could be used to used to kill cancer cells, according to a study published on Sunday.

The method uses a magnetic field a tenth as strong as used in previous efforts, and should have few side effects, the authors said.

Laboratory tests found the so-called ‘nanodiscs’, around 60 billionths of a metre thick, could be used to disrupt the membranes of cancer cells, causing them to self-destruct.

The discs are made from an iron-nickel alloy, which move when subjected to a magnetic field, damaging the cancer cells, the report published in Nature Materials said....Click Here to READ and Learn More

Posted by Jay Roberts at 12:51 AM | Permalink

Fri Jan 7, 4:45 pm ET

Earth’s magnetic pole shifts, screws up runway at Florida airport

By Liz Goodwin

 

An airport in Tampa, Florida, has had to temporarily close its runways to keep up with Earth's magnetic north pole, which is drifting toward Russia at a rate of 40 miles per year. Click Here to Read On.....

 

 

 

Posted by Jay Roberts at 02:01 AM | Permalink

Maglev, wind turbine, chinese wind power, wind power, wind turbine china, big wind turbine, magnetic levitation wind turbine, magnetic wind power, levitation wind power

Renewable energy produced from the wind has garnered much attention and support in recent years but is often criticized for its low output and lack of reliability. But now a super power wind turbine has come along that may be just what the renewable energy industry needs. The MagLev wind turbine, which was first unveiled at the Wind Power Asia exhibition in Beijing, is expected take wind power technology to the next level with magnetic levitation........To Educate yourself further click here to read on.....Hey ..it's the future!!

Posted by Jay Roberts at 03:23 AM | Permalink

WASHINGTON | Without maps or GPS, great white sharks travel thousands of miles roundtrip from California to Hawaii or Australia to South Africa. Sea turtles hatched on the beaches of Florida travel the currents of the North Atlantic to Europe, Africa and South America before heading home.

And in one of the most mysterious and epic journeys of all, salmon from the streams and rivers of the Pacific Northwest head to sea and swim into the far reaches of the North Pacific before returning to spawn.

Scientists increasingly believe these marine creatures and others use the Earth’s magnetic fields to navigate vast distances. Click Here To Read More.....


 

Posted by Jay Roberts at 03:16 AM | Permalink

.............................People use the magnet in this way when they sense a seizure is about to happen. For some, the extra stimulation stops the seizure, shortens it, makes it less severe, or reduces the time it takes to recover afterwards. Other people say using the magnet has little or no effect on their seizures....Click here to read on

Posted by Jay Roberts at 05:16 AM | Permalink

download

The aurora borealis, or Northern Lights, often appears as a curtain of fire in the sky. This spectacular light show has two main players: Earth’s magnetosphere and the solar wind.

Credit: Philippe Moussette, Obs. Mont Cosmos

Posted by Jay Roberts at 05:10 AM | Permalink

Magnetic fields surround magnets and act like invisible shields. Every magnet, from the smallest refrigerator magnet to powerful magnets that can pick up cars, has a magnetic field around it. Magnets always have two ends, or poles, and the lines of the magnetic field go from one pole to the other.

The Earth, too, is a giant magnet, which means our planet is always surrounded by a powerful and protective magnetic field. The field is layered and thick, so it looks something like a giant onion that surrounds the Earth (except it’s invisible). Earth’s magnetic field is easy to see in action ....Click Here to Read on...

Posted by Jay Roberts at 05:08 AM | Permalink

Theoretical work done at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory has provided a key to understanding an unexpected magnetism between two dissimilar materials.  

The results, published in Nature Communications, have special significance for the design of future electronic devices for computations and telecommunications, according to co-author Satoshi Okamoto of ORNL's Materials Science and Technology Division. The work was performed at Universidad Complutense de Madrid, synchrotron radiation facilities in France and Japan, University of Bristol and University of Warwick.

"What the team found was an unexpected magnetic order........Click Here to Read on.....

Posted by Jay Roberts at 05:01 AM | Permalink

Aug 22

Risks


By Mayo Clinic staff

Transcranial magnetic stimulation is the least invasive of the brain-stimulation procedures used for depression. Unlike vagus nerve stimulation or deep brain stimulation, transcranial magnetic stimulation doesn't require surgery or implantation of electrodes. And, unlike electroconvulsive therapy, it doesn't require seizures or complete sedation with anesthesia. However, transcranial magnetic stimulation does have some risks and can cause some side effects.

Common side effects
Transcranial magnetic stimulation often causes minor short-term side effects. These side effects are generally mild and typically improve after the first week or two of treatment. They can include: ...Click Here to Read More...

Posted by Jay Roberts at 03:08 AM | Permalink

By Claire Trottier and Behzad Elahi

Alternative medicine is gaining popularity in Canada, especially for the treatment of chronic conditions.  Many treatment modalities are endorsed by practitioners of alternative medicine: from nutritional supplements, to acupuncture, to magnetic bracelets. It is important to examine scientifically if these treatments works, and in so doing, we can see how skeptics examine the claims of alternative medicine.

For a skeptic, it is important to constantly remain open to new ideas; being skeptical does not mean dismissing ideas outright.  Skepticism means carefully investigating...Click Here to Read More...

Posted by Jay Roberts at 02:54 AM | Permalink

PARIS (AFP) – A neutron star with a mighty magnetic field has thrown down the gauntlet to theories about stellar evolution and the birth of black holes, astronomers reported on Wednesday.

The "magnetar" lies in a cluster of stars known as Westerlund 1, located 16,000 light years away in the constellation of Ara, the Altar.

Westerlund 1, discovered in 1961 by a Swedish astronomer, is a favoured observation site in stellar physics.... Click Here to Read On

Posted by Jay Roberts at 01:58 PM | Permalink

Uses Of Magnets in Industry

From Lodestone being used as a mariner's compass to magnetic therapy - magnets have come a long way. Magnets are used in various industries all over the world in various forms.

In Medicine And Health:

Magnetic-Therapy

Old Chinese texts dating back to 2000 B.C. make references to the application of lodestones at acupuncture sites. Similarly, Hindu scriptures of the 40th century mention the treatment of diseases with lodestones. The Greeks called them lapus-vivas (live-stones) and drew them from the fields rich in deposits of magnetic stones in southern Greece. The Egyptians ascribed a variety of therapeutic uses to lodestones. Electric eels and fish were used by Romans to treat arthritis and gout, and medieval doctors reported ....Click Here To Read On...

Posted by Jay Roberts at 09:11 PM | Permalink

This diagram shows the magnetosphere of Jupiter.
Click on image for full size (92K GIF)
Windows to the Universe original artwork

A magnetometer is an instrument for measuring magnetic fields. Many spacecraft carry magnetometers to measure the magnetic fields around planets. When a spacecraft makes those measurements, what do the measurements tell us?

The planet might have a global magnetic field surrounding it. Earth does, which is why compasses work. So do Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Electrical currents in Earth's core generate its magnetic field. The core consists of iron and nickel, which are good conductors of electricity. Similarly, Mercury has an iron core which produces its field. Areas surrounding the cores of Jupiter and Saturn are filled with liquid metal hydrogen. This strange substance exists only at the high pressure....To Read More Click Here

Posted by Jay Roberts at 02:19 AM | Permalink

Reviews of Geophysics, 34, 1-31, 1996
David P. Stern, Laboratory for Extraterrestrial Physics
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771

Abstract
    After 1958, when scientific satellites began exploring the Earth magnetic environment, many puzzling phenomena could be directly examined, especially the polar aurora and disturbances of the Earth's magnetic field [see Stern, 1989a]. The notion of the solar wind, introduced that same year, helped clarify the role of the Sun in driving such phenomena. The large-scale structure of the magnetosphere, the space region dominated by the Earth's magnetic field, was gradually revealed within the next decade: its trapped particles, its boundary, and its long magnetic tail on the night side. Inevitably, however, the new discoveries led to new questions... To Read More .. Click Here..

Posted by Jay Roberts at 02:11 AM | Permalink

Until the middle of the 20th century the Earth's magnetism seemed to be a happy accident of nature. Too many factors had to fit just right--the fluid core of the Earth, its electrical condctivity and its motions, all had to satisfy the strict requirements of dynamo theory.

    That was before other planets in the solar system were visited and examined. Now we know that among those planets, only Venus lacks any magnetism. The planets differ greatly in size and properties, and their fields differ too. Yet they all seem to have dynamo fields, or (in the case of Mars and the Moon) have had them in the past.

  Jupiter

Jupiter

    In early 1955, two young radio-astronomers started working with a cross-shaped antenna array of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Terrestrial Magnetism (DTM). The array could select signals from a narrow range of directions, and Ken Franklin and Bernie Burke calibrated it using a known source, the....Click Here to Read On...

Posted by Jay Roberts at 02:08 AM | Permalink


What you eat determines how stress affects your health. You can protect yourself from the damaging effects of cortisol, the main stress hormone, through The Adaptation Diet.

Reduce excess cortisol and:

  • Decrease the risk for heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and cancer
  • Drop the fat around the midsection and increase lean muscle mass
  • Lose weight and improve fitness
  • Improve the ability to adapt to emotional or situational stress

Learn to stop the hidden biochemical stress of elevated cortisol with the right eating habits and the use of cortisol-controlling foods and nutrients such as flaxseed powder, cold-water fish and specialized vitamins and botanicals.

The Adaptation Diet uniquely provides a blueprint to protect against the health damaging effects of stress. It takes you through a step-by-step guide to reduce inflammation, diminish the impact of food allergies, improve the detoxification process and identify if celiac disease or wheat intolerance is adding to your biochemical stress. It includes recipes, menus, and a straightforward plan for reducing cortisol, losing weight and slowing the aging process.

The Adaptation Diet is based in over 30 years of experience treating thousands of patients at the La Jolla Clinic of Integrative Medicine. Thoroughly researched and clinically proven, the Adaptation Diet is the path to healthy aging and optimum health.....Clck Here to Learn more

Posted by Jay Roberts at 03:21 AM | Permalink

Although the very laws of physics render perpetual motion impossible (the second law of Thermodynamics and the law of conservation of energy), Irish scientists claim to have constructed a perpetual motion device powered by magnets.

The machine, called Orbo, was first announced by Steorn in 2007, but disappeared after a problem plagued and inconclusive demonstration.  CEO Sean McCarthy explains that power is generated from the magnets "with no apparent source," a claim that runs counter to the law of conservation of energy - which states that energy cannot be created or destroyed.

If McCarthy's claim is accurate, Orbo is a perpetual motion machine of the first kind, one that produces energy 'from nothing,' a device that produces what is essentially free energy.

Right now, Orbo is on display in Dublin, complete with a live video stream.

Posted by Jay Roberts at 10:26 PM | Permalink

One of the things we've been blogging about a lot lately is the use of magnetics in groundbreaking medical procedures.  And the news keeps giving us things to write about.  We don't make any medical claims about the magnetic jewelry we sell, but magnetism certainly has some stunning medical applications.

In New Delhi, a team of doctors managed to remove a 4 inch sewing needle from a patient's heart by using a magnet.  When the needle inside Prashant Chalotra's heart was pushed deeper into the muscle by continued by the heart's beating, the doctors used a magnet to partially remove the needle from the tissue to give their instruments a better grip. 

Posted by Jay Roberts at 09:23 PM | Permalink

Copper

Overview:

Copper is a mineral found in trace amounts in all tissues in the body. Although only a small amount is needed, copper is an essential nutrient that plays a role in the production of hemoglobin (the main iron component of red blood cells), myelin (the substance that surrounds nerve fibers), collagen (a key component of bones and connective tissue), and melanin (a dark pigment that colors the hair and skin). Copper also works with vitamin C to help make a component of connective tissue known as elastin.

Copper can act as both an antioxidant and a pro-oxidant. As an antioxidant, it scavenges damaging particles in the body known as free radicals. Free radicals occur naturally in the body and can damage cell walls, interact with genetic material, and possibly contribute to the aging process as well as the development of a number of health conditions. Antioxidants can neutralize free radicals and may reduce or even help prevent some of the damage they cause.

When copper acts as a pro-oxidant at times, it promotes free radical damage and may contribute to the development of Alzheimer's disease and, possibly, cervical dysplasia (precancerous lesions of the cervix which forms the opening to the uterus). Maintaining the proper dietary balance .....Click Here To Read More

Posted by Jay Roberts at 04:26 AM | Permalink

Magnets 'help regrow brain cells?
  Magnets may offer a way to boost mental performance, US research suggests.

Scientists in New York promoted the growth of new neurons in the brains of mice using a magnetic stimulus in the region associated with memory.

Presenting the results at the American Academy for Neuroscience conference, the researchers said the results may lead to treatments for Alzheimer's.

However, if proven the technique is more likely to be a way of slowing progression of the disease than a cure. To Read More Click Here....

Posted by Jay Roberts at 03:08 PM | Permalink

What Exactly are we Talking about Here??

 What is rTMS?

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a technique for gently stimulating the brain. It utilizes a specialized electromagnet placed on the patient’s scalp that generates short magnetic pulses, roughly the strength of an MRI scanner’s magnetic field but much more focused. The magnetic pulses pass easily through the skull just like the MRI scanner fields do, but because they are short pulses and not a static field, they can stimulate the underlying cerebral cortex (brain). Low frequency (once per second) TMS has been shown to induce reductions in brain activation while stimulation at higher frequencies (> 5 pulses per second) has been shown to increase brain activation. It has also been shown that these changes can last for periods of time after stimulation is stopped. TMS was first developed in 1985, and has been studied significantly since 1995.

What disorders has TMS been shown to be useful for?

TMS is currently being investigated as a potential treatment for patients with major depression, patients who experience hallucinated "voices" and a variety of other psychiatric and neurological disorders. Over 1500 patients have been studied with TMS. For patients with major depression,... Click Here To Read More

Posted by Jay Roberts at 08:53 PM | Permalink

The Sun's Magnetic Field

 

Magnetic field lines from a computer simulation of the solar corona show some of the complexity of the Sun's magnetic field. Colors on the Sun's surface show the strength of the magnetic field (yellow is largest).
Click on image for full size (14 Kb)

The Sun has a very large and very complex magnetic field. The magnetic field at an average place on the Sun is around 1 Gauss, about twice as strong as the average field on the surface of Earth (around 0.5 Gauss). Since the Sun's surface is more than 12,000 times larger than Earth's, the overall influence of the Sun's magnetic field is vast.

The magnetic field of the Sun actually extends far out into space, beyond.....Click Here to Read More

Posted by Jay Roberts at 10:28 PM | Permalink

According to the Boston Globe, scientists are trying a new approach to study and observe autistic brain by using special paddles against patients' head and creating a magnetic field that triggers brain cell activity. Known as transcranial magnetic stimulation, this approach allows for scientists to spark activity in specific areas of the brain and watch what happens to the patients' behavior. The technology may illuminate some of the biology behind the disease, and some specialists speculate it may one day offer a treatment for many neurological disorders.

 

Puzzle Pieces 

"There's a lot of mystery about autism - it's not as if there's a well-understood story of what's going on at all, and there's a huge variety of autism, too," said John Gabrieli, a neuroscientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Transcranial magnetic stimulation "is fantastic for identifying brain regions that are essential for specific mental functions. . . . I think if we can start to use it more systematically with autism, one could hope we'd understand a lot more about what's going on."

Learn more about the studies here.

Posted by Jay Roberts at 07:48 PM | Permalink

An MRI (or magnetic resonance imaging) scan is a radiology technique that uses magnetism, radio waves, and a computer to produce images of body structures. The MRI scanner is a tube surrounded by a giant circular magnet. The patient is placed on a moveable bed that is inserted into the magnet. The magnet creates a strong magnetic field that aligns the protons of hydrogen atoms,...To Read On...Click Here...

Posted by Jay Roberts at 11:54 PM | Permalink

The north pole of a compass needle points towards Earth's north geographic pole (Earth's south magnetic pole).

okay...

Earth's south magnetic pole is on the top/up-side in all the pictures we see of the solar system in textbooks etc. This can be explained by saying that Earth's south magnetic pole is aligned with the Sun's north pole; thus the Sun's north magnetic pole is on the top/up side of the solar system plane we see in textbooks.

Then again, is the solar system plane on the plane of the milky way galaxy? I dunno. But assuming it is, we can infer that the milky way galaxy has a north pole that is on the bottom/down side relative to how we see stuff on Earth; thus when we stand on Earth's south geographic pole and look up, we are looking in more or less the same direction as the milky way galaxy's north magnetic pole.

And so on and so forth until we're talking about the universe. Except I don't know if things like galaxy clusters etc. complicate this cycle.
  • 9 months ago

Additional Details

In other words, are there universal magnetic poles? An "up" and "down" on a universal scale?.... Read ON... Click Here

Posted by Jay Roberts at 11:42 PM | Permalink

Harlow T, Greaves C, White A, Brown L, Hart A, Ernst E.

College Surgery, Cullompton, Devon EX15 1TG. timharlow@eclipse.co.uk

OBJECTIVE: To determine the effectiveness of commercially available magnetic bracelets for pain control in osteoarthritis of the hip and knee. DESIGN: Randomised, placebo controlled trial with three parallel groups. SETTING: Five rural general practices. PARTICIPANTS: 194 men and women aged 45-80 years with osteoarthritis of the hip or knee. INTERVENTION: Wearing a standard strength static bipolar magnetic bracelet, a weak magnetic bracelet, or a non-magnetic (dummy) bracelet for 12 weeks. MAIN OUTCOME... Click Here to Find Out...

Posted by Jay Roberts at 05:45 AM | Permalink

Scientists have identified a molecule that fruit flies need to sense magnetic fields. It is the first time the specific molecule has been linked conclusively to magnetic sensitivity in any animal, the researchers report in a July 20 online Nature article.

access

A Sense of DirectionScientists think that somewhere in the photoreceptive cells of the fly, perhaps in the eyes, there is a molecule that allows the fly to sense magnetic fields.

 

The molecule, cryptochrome, acts as a light receptor and is sensitive to blue and ultraviolet light.

 

“This is a huge finding. It really says that cryptochrome, which is linked to animals’ circadian clock, is also involved in a living animal’s response to magnetic fields,”.. Click Here to Read On...

Posted by Jay Roberts at 08:37 PM | Permalink

Take A Look - Click Here...

 

Posted by Jay Roberts at 08:13 PM | Permalink

A group of researchers at the Technical University of Denmark’s project laboratory in Risø have discovered a cooling method that uses magnetic materials instead of electricity, reported daily free newspaper Nyhedsavisen.

The invention will allow for refrigerators to replace existing electric refrigerators in homes and businesses with a fully environmentally friendly power source.... Read On ...Click Here

Posted by Jay Roberts at 06:51 PM | Permalink

Diamagnetism is the property of an object which causes it to create a magnetic field in opposition

Read More...... Click Here

Posted by Jay Roberts at 09:51 PM | Permalink

Magnet Therapy Gets Boost

By Christopher Wanjek, LiveScience Bad Medicine Columnist

posted: 08 January 2008 06:28 am ET

Magnetic therapy, long derailed as pseudoscience, has just gotten a boost from a biomedical study showing how magnets can reduce swelling.

The study will likely impress manufacturers of magnetic devices, many of whom never dreamed these things could actually work and have been selling them merely to cash in on this $5-billion-a-year industry. But skeptics will have a tough time brushing this one off.

In a tightly controlled study—a rarity in the world of alternative medicine—Thomas Skalak of the University of Virginia found that static magnets reduced swelling by up to 50 percent in the tiny hind paws of rats. Skalak published his results in the November issue of the American Journal of Physiology.

Push and pull

Therapeutic magnets have a demonstrated ability to pull wads of cash from your wallet. Some magnetic back braces sell for upwards of $100. The benefits associated with magnets range, according to proponents, from curing cancer to chasing away your mother-in-law, but mostly magnets are used to treat pain from muscle aches and arthritis.

Called static because they emit a steady force, similar to a refrigerator magnet, therapeutic magnets are very popular among athletes. Former Miami Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino claims that magnets healed his fractured ankle later in his career. It's not clear, however, which losing season he was referring to.

Yet little scientific evidence exists demonstrating that static magnets heal, according to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), which funds studies of questionable therapies to see if there's anything behind the often outrageous claims.

First strong study READ MORE.....CLICK HERE

Posted by Jay Roberts at 05:01 PM | Permalink

    Until the middle of the 20th century the Earth's magnetism seemed to be a happy accident of nature. Too many factors had to fit just right--the fluid core of the Earth, its electrical condctivity and its motions, all had to satisfy the strict requirements of dynamo theory.

    That was before other planets in the solar system were visited and examined. Now we know that among those planets, only Venus lacks any magnetism. The planets differ greatly in size and properties, and their fields differ too. Yet they all seem to have dynamo fields, or (in the case of Mars and the Moon) have had them in the past.

  Jupiter
(bigger version)

Jupiter

    In early 1955, two young radio-astronomers started working with a cross-shaped antenna array of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Terrestrial Magnetism (DTM). The array stood on the north shore of the Potomac River (upstream from Washington, DC and slightly south of White's Ferry; more here) and could select signals from a narrow range of directions. Ken Franklin and Bernie Burke calibrated it using a known source, the Crab Nebula, then began surveying the surrounding sky.

READ MORE....Click Here

Posted by Jay Roberts at 02:21 AM | Permalink

    Until the middle of the 20th century the Earth's magnetism seemed to be a happy accident of nature. Too many factors had to fit just right--the fluid core of the Earth, its electrical condctivity and its motions, all had to satisfy the strict requirements of dynamo theory.

    That was before other planets in the solar system were visited and examined. Now we know that among those planets, only Venus lacks any magnetism. The planets differ greatly in size and properties, and their fields differ too. Yet they all seem to have dynamo fields, or (in the case of Mars and the Moon) have had them in the past.

  Jupiter
(bigger version)

Jupiter

    In early 1955, two young radio-astronomers started working with a cross-shaped antenna array of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Terrestrial Magnetism (DTM). The array stood on the north shore of the Potomac River (upstream from Washington, DC and slightly south of White's Ferry; more here) and could select signals from a narrow range of directions. Ken Franklin and Bernie Burke calibrated it using a known source, the Crab Nebula, then began surveying the surrounding sky.

READ MORE....Click Here

Posted by Jay Roberts at 02:21 AM | Permalink

    Blackett's Proposal

        It is an uncanny fact that the Earth's magnetic axis is close to its rotation axis--that the magnetic poles, where the magnetic force points straight down, are quite close to the geographical ones. William Gilbert saw it as evidence that rotation and magnetism arose from the same source:

     

      "Diurnal motion is due to causes which have now to be sought, arising from magnetick vigour and from the confederated bodies."

        Gilbert thus believed the Earth rotated because it was magnetic. P.M. Blackett, who won the 1948 Nobel prize for his work on cosmic rays, seriously considered the opposite possibility--that the Earth was magnetic because it rotated around its axis. Blackett at one time suggested that perhaps a new universal phenomenon existed--that any rotating object was intrinsically magnetized.

        At first this did not seem such a wild idea. Electrons and protons, for instance, do have an intrinsic "spin" giving them properties like those of a rotating solid object, and they also have an intrinsic magnetization, making them tiny magnets, lined-up with their spin axes. In ordinary materials, such atomic magnets point in all possible directions, so that their effects cancel.

     



    But concerning the Earth, Blackett guessed wrong. Experiments with spinning objects, which by his theory should have produced measurable magnetization, showed none. Later observations also showed that during the last tens of millions of years, the magnetic polarity of the Earth reversed many times, something that Blackett's prediction would never allow.

      The core of the Earth

The Earth's Core

    The way earthquake waves spread tells us that the Earth has at its center a dense liquid core, of about 1/2 the radius of the Earth--and inside that, a solid inner core. It is widely believed this core is made up of molten iron, perhaps mixed with nickel and sulfur. The density seems appropriate, and iron, which among all elements has the most stable nucleus, is abundant in the universe. It concentrated in the Earth's core because it is heavy--the same reason that, when it is extracted from its ores, it sinks to the bottom of the blast furnace.     Energy is the currency with which most processes in nature must be paid for. The Earth's magnetism is no exception, and its energy seemes to come from fluid motions in the Earth's core, from circulating flows that help get rid of heat produced there. In a similar way, our weather is driven by circulating air flows that help cool the ground, where much of sunlight is absorbed.

    Scientists are still not sure about what provides the heat in the Earth's core. It might come from some of the iron becoming solid and joining the inner core, or perhaps it is generated by radioactivity, like the heat of the Earth's crust. The flows are very slow, and the energy involved is just a tiny part of the total heat energy contained in the core.

    Scientists are still not sure about what provides the heat in the Earth's core. It might come from some of the iron becoming solid and joining the inner core, or perhaps it is generated by radioactivity, like the heat of the Earth's crust. The flows are very slow, and the energy involved is just a tiny part of the total heat energy contained in the core.

    So the molten metal is believed to be circulating. By moving through the existing magnetic field, it creates a system of electric currents, spread out through the core, somewhat like Faraday's disk dynamo, discussed earlier. Currents create a magnetic field--a distribution of magnetic forces--and the essence of the self-sustaining dynamo problem is to find solutions such that the resulting magnetic field is also the input field required for generating the current in the first place.

    Actually, that is only the lowest level of the problem, in which one is free to prescribe the motions. To solve the full problem, we also need information about the heat sources, and these sources must be able to drive motions which also solve the dynamo problem.

    Such problems are not easy. They involve intricate mathematics and are not yet fully solved. Only the roughest ideas in their solutions can be outlined here.

Posted by Jay Roberts at 02:15 AM | Permalink

The Sunday Times Newspaper on 26th February 2006, revealed that the NHS has for the very first time allowed magnetic therapy treatment devices to be prescribed by G.P's. At this moment in time, the devices they are able to prescribe are limited to the treatment of chronic leg ulcers. The magnets, that will be used, will speed up the ulcer's healing rate and encourage new cell and skin growth.

   A UK based clinical study completed in 2003 provided strong evidence that magnetic leg straps were more effective than traditional compression bandaging techniques and have been deemed buy the prescribing authority to be  more cost effective.

   As yet the NHS has not revealed any plans to widen the prescribing powers of GP's to allow them to incorporate other magnetic therapy devices into their mainstream treatments, but surely it will not be very long before we see magnetic therapy being used alongside conventional drugs therapies. Magnets have for many years now demonstrated to be equally and in many cases more effective than conventional pain killing drug therapies.

   It is blatantly obvious that there are numerous advantages to introducing chemical and drug free options along side existing treatments.....READ ON.......

Posted by Jay Roberts at 03:38 PM | Permalink

For over 25 years it has been widely accepted that pulsed electromagnetic fields can help treat bone fractures, and there is growing evidence to suggest a process known as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is effective in treating mental disorders such as severe depression.

There is less convincing evidence for the popular self-help therapy based on applying small magnets to various body parts. A great number of alternative health sources have advertised that wearing magnetic jewelry can speed healing from injuries, “aid blood flow,” ease arthritic pain and relax aching muscles. The inevitable result of citing unsubstantiated health claims like these—and then trying to sell magnetic bangles, necklaces, rings, blankets, mattresses and insoles—is strained credibility. However, one 2004 study did show decreased pain from osteoarthritis of the hip and knee.   Read More .....http://health.msn.com/centers/mentalhealth/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100158403

Posted by Jay Roberts at 04:08 AM | Permalink

What is magnetic field therapy?

Magnetic field therapy uses magnets to maintain health and treat illness.

The human body and the earth naturally produce electric and magnetic fields. Electromagnetic fields also can be technologically produced, such as radio and television currents. Practitioners of magnetic field therapy believe that interactions between the body, the earth, and other electromagnetic fields cause physical and emotional changes in humans. They also believe that the body's electromagnetic field must be in balance to maintain good health.

Practitioners apply magnetic field therapy to the outside of the body. The magnets may be:

  • Electrically charged to deliver an electrical pulse to the treated area.
  • Used with acupuncture needles to treat energy pathways in the body.

Read More......http://health.msn.com/encyclopedia/healthtopics/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100073714

Posted by Jay Roberts at 04:05 AM | Permalink

Plasma Confinement by Magnetic Fields

 

Principle

Left to itself, a plasma - like a gas - will occupy all the geometrical space available, because of the collisions between the particles. Magnetic fields can confine a plasma, because the ions...Read on...http://www.fusion-eur.org/fusion_cd/magnetic.htm

Posted by Jay Roberts at 02:17 AM | Permalink

If someone said you can understand rain patterns and the dynamics of the atmosphere by studying magnets and magnetism -- and therefore make better predictions of the effects of global warming -- would you think he's crazy? Brilliant? The atmosphere spans the entire globe, while a magnet fits easily in your hand; can they really be so similar?
Ole Peters, a 27-year-old physicist with expertise in "critical phenomena" and "self organized criticality" -- which he acknowledges is "a bit of a rogue field" -- doesn't sound the least bit crazy. Read On.........http://www.physorg.com/news70103455.html

Posted by Jay Roberts at 09:22 PM | Permalink

The connections between magnetism and electricity were discovered in the early part of the 19th cent. In 1820 H. C. Oersted found that a wire carrying an electrical current deflects the needle of a magnetic compass because a magnetic field is created by the moving electric charges constituting the current. It was found that the lines of induction of the magnetic field surrounding the wire (or any other conductor) are circular. If the wire is bent into a coil, called a solenoid, the magnetic fields of the individual loops combine to produce a strong field through the core of the coil. This field can be increased manyfold by....Read On...http://www.factmonster.com/ce6/sci/A0859429.html

Posted by Jay Roberts at 02:53 AM | Permalink

Well here we go again - magnetic volcanic rocks - put the threads together - what have we found in our reseach

1) Magnetic fields on the sun

2) Magnetic pathways turtles are believed to follow to find their way around the globe

3) Magnetic pathways sharks are believed to follow as well

4) Read yet more info on magnets and their pervasive nature as part of who and literally what we are.....

 

Testing the Sea-Floor Spreading Hypothesis

Before being widely accepted, a new hypothesis must be tested. One test for the sea-floor-spreading hypothesis involved magnetic patterns on the sea floor.

 

In the late 1950's, scientists mapped the present-day magnetic field generated by rocks on the floor of the Pacific Ocean. The volcanic rocks which make up the sea floor have magnetization because, as they cool, magnetic minerals within the rock align to the Earth's magnetic field. The intensity of the magnetic field they measured was very different from the intensity they had calculated. Thus, the scientists detected magnetic anomalies, or differences in the magnetic field from place to place. They found positive and negative magnetic anomalies. Positive magnetic anomalies are places where the magnetic field is stronger than expected. Positive magnetic anomalies are induced when the rock cools and solidifies with the Earth's north magnetic pole in the northern geographic hemisphere.......Read on......http://volcano.und.edu/vwdocs/vwlessons/plate_tectonics/part9.html

Posted by Jay Roberts at 03:50 AM | Permalink

The early nineteenth century was an exciting period in the history of magnetism. Interest in finding a sailing route through the Arctic islands, the so-called Northwest Passage, led to the British Royal Navy sending numerous expeditions to the Canadian Arctic. Because of its importance to navigation, the Royal Navy was also interested in magnetism and thus included magnetic observers on many of its expeditions, the most notable being Edward Sabine and James Clark Ross.

By 1829 sufficient magnetic observations had been made in the Canadian Arctic to restrict the location of the North Magnetic Pole to a hitherto unexplored section of the central Arctic. At this point the British Admiralty suddenly lost interest in Arctic exploration. However, John Ross (the uncle of James) was able to obtain sponsorship from the wealthy distiller Felix Booth for another attempt at the Northwest Passage – one that would go through the uncharted territory in which the North Magnetic Pole was thought to reside. Ross's expedition was remarkable in many ways. His ship, the Victory, was steam powered. This first attempt to use steam power in the Arctic caused the elder Ross to write "there seems indeed no end to the vexation produced by this accursed machinery..." The expedition was forced to spend four winters in the Arctic due to the imprisonment of the Victory in the ice. Eventually, the crew abandoned the Victory and reached the north coast of Baffin Island in lifeboats where they were rescued. In four years only three men were lost, a remarkable feat of survival for the time.

James Ross

James Ross was well aware that the ship's route down the east coast of Boothia Peninsula brought it very close to the Magnetic Pole, and observations made while the ship was entombed in the ice confirmed that the Pole lay no more than a couple of hundred kilometres to the west. In May, 1831, he led a small party overland, and on the last day of the month reached a spot on the west coast of Boothia Peninsula (70° 05.3' N, 96° 46' W) where he believed the North Magnetic Pole should be. After carrying out a lengthy series of observations in an abandoned igloo, Ross computed a magnetic inclination of 89° 59'. Given the accuracy of his instruments, and the variable nature of the magnetic field, he could...Read on...http://gsc.nrcan.gc.ca/geomag/nmp/expeditions_e.php

Posted by Jay Roberts at 09:21 PM | Permalink

The concept of the North Magnetic Pole arose from the desire of early European navigators to explain the directional properties of the compass. The compass was in use in China at least as early as the 1st century and appears to have been imported into Europe by the 12th century; the earliest European reference dates from 1190. However, whereas the Chinese considered the compass a south-pointing device, Europeans considered it north-pointing. This change in orientation would prove important in the development of theories about the nature of the Magnetic Pole.

The first detailed descriptions of both a floating and a pivoted compass appeared in the Epistola of Petrus Perigrinus written in 1269. In this remarkable work Perigrinus did more than just describe the construction of a compass. He described experiments performed on a sphere of lodestone, predating the more famous work of William Gilbert by more than 300 years. Peregrinus made three important discoveries....Read on...http://gsc.nrcan.gc.ca/geomag/nmp/early_nmp_e.php

Posted by Jay Roberts at 09:20 PM | Permalink

yes we have seen this in our reseach about magnetic fields on the sun reversing every 11 years - Haven't we??

The Earth's magnetic field is aligned roughly along the spin axis and has an approximate dipole shape, similar to that of a bar magnet, with north and south magnetic poles. This is the normal state of affairs, but occasionally the magnetic field switches polarity, the north and south magnetic poles reverse, and the field settles down in the opposite state. The process goes by several names – "magnetic field reversal" and "polarity transition" are the most common.

Reversals have been documented as far back as ..Read on...http://gsc.nrcan.gc.ca/geomag/nmp/reversals_e.php

Posted by Jay Roberts at 09:18 PM | Permalink

North Magnetic Pole Path since 1831

The accompanying figure shows the path of the North Magnetic Pole since its discovery in 1831 to the last observed position in 2001. During the last century...Read on....http://gsc.nrcan.gc.ca/geomag/nmp/long_mvt_nmp_e.php

Posted by Jay Roberts at 09:16 PM | Permalink

Geomagnetism
Daily Movement of the North Magnetic Pole

It is important to realize that the position of the North Magnetic Pole given for a particular year is an average position. The Magnetic Pole wanders daily around this average position and, on days when the magnetic field is disturbed, may be displaced by 80 km or more. Although the North Magnetic Pole's motion on any given day is irregular, the average path forms a well-defined oval. The diagram shows the average path on disturbed days.

 

the average path on disturbed days

The cause of the North Magnetic Pole's diurnal motion is quite different than that of its secular motion. If we measure the Earth's magnetic field continually,   Read on ....http://gsc.nrcan.gc.ca/geomag/nmp/daily_mvt_nmp_e.php

Posted by Jay Roberts at 09:14 PM | Permalink

Like many things in life getting back to basics generally helps to refresh the  collective knowledge we have accumulated over time on any given subject. Today let's revisit the basics of what magnetic north means...

 

The Earth's magnetic field is shaped approximately like that of a bar magnet and, like a magnet, it has two magnetic poles, one in the Canadian arctic, referred to as the North Magnetic Pole, and one off the coast of Antarctica, south of Australia, referred to as the South Magnetic Pole. At the North Magnetic Pole the Earth's magnetic field is directed vertically downward relative to the Earth's surface. Consequently, magnetic dip, or inclination is 90° . In addition, the North Magnetic Pole is the eventual destination for a traveller who follows his or her compass needle from anywhere on Earth.  Read on ...http://gsc.nrcan.gc.ca/geomag/nmp/northpole_e.php

Posted by Jay Roberts at 09:12 PM | Permalink

Like many things in life getting back to basics generally helps to refresh the  collective knowledge we have accumulated over time on any given subject. Today let's revisit the basics of what magnetic north means...

 

The Earth's magnetic field is shaped approximately like that of a bar magnet and, like a magnet, it has two magnetic poles, one in the Canadian arctic, referred to as the North Magnetic Pole, and one off the coast of Antarctica, south of Australia, referred to as the South Magnetic Pole. At the North Magnetic Pole the Earth's magnetic field is directed vertically downward relative to the Earth's surface. Consequently, magnetic dip, or inclination is 90° . In addition, the North Magnetic Pole is the eventual destination for a traveller who follows his or her compass needle from anywhere on Earth.  Read on ...http://gsc.nrcan.gc.ca/geomag/nmp/northpole_e.php

Posted by Jay Roberts at 09:12 PM | Permalink

Juvenile Geomagnetic Map

Introduction

Compasses and Maps

Earth's Magnetic Field

Experimental Methods

Results

 

 

 

 

Posted by Jay Roberts at 04:15 AM | Permalink




To a first approximation, the Earth's magnetic field resembles that of an enormous bar magnet. The field lines emerge from the southern half of the earth and re-enter in the northern half.

Several features of the Earth's field vary in a predictable way across the surface of the globe and might, in principle, be used in assessing geographic position. For example, at each location on the Earth, the field lines intersect the Earth's surface at a specific angle of inclination. On the diagram above, note that near the equator, the field lines are approximately parallel to the Earth's surface; the inclination angle in this region is said to be 0°. As one travels north from the equator, however, the field lines become progressively steeper. At the magnetic pole, the field lines are directed almost straight down into the Earth and the inclination is said to be 90°. Thus, inclination angle varies with latitude. As a consequence, an animal that has the ability to distinguish between magnetic inclination angles has a mechanism that it might be able to use to approximate its latitude. As we will discuss, hatchling loggerheads have been shown to have this ability....More. Read on....http://www.unc.edu/depts/oceanweb/turtles/

Posted by Jay Roberts at 04:10 AM | Permalink

The offshore migration of hatchling Florida loggerheads is just the first step in a much longer transoceanic journey. Young loggerheads evidently remain for several years within the North Atlantic gyre, the circular current system that encircles the Sargasso Sea (see below). During this time many cross to the eastern side of the Atlantic Ocean before returning to the North American coast as juveniles.

....Read on........http://www.unc.edu/depts/oceanweb/turtles/

Posted by Jay Roberts at 04:08 AM | Permalink

     If the magnetic compass functions in the offshore migration of hatchlings, then turtles must inherit or acquire a preference for swimming toward the magnetic direction that coincides with the seaward direction. In initial experiments investigating the magnetic compass, hatchling loggerheads were permitted to swim toward a dim light in the east (their normal migratory direction) before they were tested in darkness. These animals subsequently swam east to northeast in the geomagnetic field. To determine whether the initial course of the turtles influenced their subsequent magnetic orientation, turtles in one experiment were exposed to light from either magnetic east or west before being tested in darkness (Lohmann and Lohmann, 1994). Hatchlings that had been exposed to light in the east subsequently oriented eastward, whereas those that had been exposed to light in the west swam approximately westward. Reversing the magnetic field resulted in......Read on.....http://www.unc.edu/depts/oceanweb/turtles/

Posted by Jay Roberts at 04:06 AM | Permalink

Hatchlings that have just entered the ocean appear to orient exclusively on the basis of waves; no evidence presently exists for the involvement of other directional cues at this early stage of the offshore migration. Because waves entering shallow water refract until they approach the beach directly, orienting into waves leads turtles seaward.

In deeper water farther from land, waves no longer provide a reliable indicator of offshore direction. Nevertheless, hatchling loggerheads tracked from a Florida beach continued on the same offshore headings even after entering areas where wave direction no longer coincided with their established courses. The ability to maintain headings seemingly independent of wave direction implies that, after they have distanced themselves from land, hatchlings use one or more alternative sources of directional information to guide their movements.

Loggerhead and leatherback hatchlings are known to orient to the Earth's magnetic field, a cue that might potentially provide sea turtles with a way to maintain a heading without relying on waves. The experiments that first demonstrated that sea turtles can detect magnetic fields involved monitoring the directions that turtles swam toward under various magnetic fields in the lab. For these tests, each hatchling was placed into a nylon-Lycra harness as shown below.

Read on.......More....http://www.unc.edu/depts/oceanweb/turtles/

Posted by Jay Roberts at 03:54 AM | Permalink

The rocks on Mars contain the magnetic imprint left by large-scale surface movements millions of years ago, according to a team of US and French researchers.


BBC Science Correspondent Sue Nelson: "Mars has more in common with Earth than ever before"
If confirmed, this would be the first direct evidence of the existence on another world other than Earth of what scientists call plate tectonics.

This describes how the planet's crust is divided into interlocking sections, or plates, that float on top of a partially molten mantle. Heat from the Earth's core drives a convection system within the mantle, causing the plates on the surface to move.

 

Barcode pattern

The plates separate, collide, and squeeze past each other. This explains a wide variety of events such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and mountain ranges.

The theory of plate tectonics on Earth was confirmed by the presence on the Atlantic sea floor of a series of magnetic stripes......Read on......http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/331535.stm

Posted by Jay Roberts at 03:27 AM | Permalink


Lemon Shark (Negaprion brevirostris)

Magnets are familiar strangers. Most of us have at least one around the house - in our telephone receivers, stereo and TV speakers, or used to turn our refrigerators into bulletin boards and art galleries. The earliest magnets (circa 500 BC) were naturally-occurring lumps of an iron oxide mineral known as 'magnetite' (Fe3O4) and were imputed with all manner of mystical properties. Today, magnets come in all shapes and sizes: from simple bars and 'classic' horseshoes to various business logos and cartoon characters to food, fishes, cows, and even baby-blue pigs with 'Think Thin' written across their bellies - thereby holding up both our best intentions and our kids' baseball schedules. Magnets are everywhere. But few of us understand how they work.

Magnetism and electricity are fundamentally interconnected. Danish scientist Hans Christian Oersted showed in 1820 that an electric current flowing in a wire deflects a compass nearby. Whenever an electric current flows - whether from cloud to ground in the form of lightning or through a contracting muscle in the body - a magnetic field is created. The unification of electric and magnetic principles under a comprehensive mathematical theory was first achieved by Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell in 1864. It is now known that magnetism is a property of the atom itself. Ultimately, the magnetic properties of matter are determined by the collective behavior of the negatively charged electrons that orbit the nuclei of atoms. The magnetic dipole moment (or magnetic field) of an individual electron has two components, one resulting from the spin of the electron about its own axis, the other from its orbital motion about the nucleus. Both kinds of motion may be considered as tiny circular currents (moving charges), thus linking electricity and magnetism at an atomic level.

In most atoms and molecules, these electronic magnets are oriented in random directions and the sum total magnetic moment of all the orbital electrons is zero. However, in some highly ordered crystalline materials - such as iron, nickel, and cobalt - the spins of some orbital electrons in adjacent atoms become coupled (I will spare you the quantum physics), creating local magnetic 'domains' in which magnetization is unidirectional. Adjacent domains are magnetized in different directions, so that there is no bulk magnetization. When an external magnetic field is applied, those domains aligned with the field grow at the expense of others, resulting in a very strong type of permanent magnetization known as 'ferromagnetism'. So from where does this 'external field' come? For the answer, we must look to the Earth's core....Read on...http://www.elasmo-research.org/education/topics/s_lodestones.htm

Posted by Jay Roberts at 10:03 PM | Permalink

 

While you may never have pondered the similarity between a common bar magnet and a star, astronomers do, and they believe they have figure out why the two disparate bodies are sometimes strikingly similar.

Magnetic activity on many stars, such as our Sun, varies a lot over days, weeks and years. Magnetic fields pop in and out of existence at different spots and overall intensity changes with time. But other stars have strong, consistent magnetic fields that behave just like the smooth and static field of a bar magnet. Astronomers call them magnetic stars.

In these magnetic stars, as with bar magnets, magnetic field lines emanate from each pole, north and south, and loop outward like the skeletal lines of a perfect pumpkin, connecting one pole to the other.

There are three types of magnetic stars:

  • Magnetic A-stars are otherwise normal and about two to 10 times as hefty as the Sun. One example is Alioth, the third star in on the handle of the Big Dipper.
  • Some white dwarfs, which are burnt-out stellar corpses, have magnetic fields 100,000 times stronger than the typical magnetic A-star.
  • Magnetars are ultra-dense neutron stars that have fields 100 billion times stronger than a commercial bar magnet.

For the past five decades or so, there have been two competing ideas for how magnetic stars pack such strong and consistent power. One says the magnetism is generated by movement deep within the star, similar to how Earth's ever-present magnetic field is created.

The other idea, known as the fossil field hypothesis, holds that the magnetic field of a giant gas cloud is sometimes retained after the cloud collapses to form a star. That fits with the fact that fields of magnetic stars don't change with time. But there's a problem: The magnetic field in a star should decay in a few years, other theories state, so something would have to rejuvenate it. Or, perhaps the theory hasn't been fully fleshed out.

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics have made new numeric simulations in which magnetic fields of various initial configurations become stable as a star develops, supporting the fossil field idea.

"The clouds from which stars form contain a very large amount of magnetic field lines, more than even the stars with the strongest fields observed, explained Max Planck researcher Hendrik Spruit. "Most of the magnetic flux decays away in all cases, but in some a bit (or even a lot) remains."

The fields always end up the same, with a ring of twisted field lines. The mess looks something like a car tire in which broken steel from the internal wire mesh sticks through the surface at various angles, Spruit and his colleagues reported in the Oct. 14 issue of the journal Nature. ....Read on....http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/magnetic_stars_041102.html

Posted by Jay Roberts at 04:04 AM | Permalink

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/einstein/

Posted by Jay Roberts at 03:38 AM | Permalink

Well maybe lookingat a magnetic bracelet, copper bracelet, magnetic jewelry website is going too far referring to Newton and various theory's but then again why not fill the mind while you still can??

 

SUBJECT: Observing Newton's Theory of Gravity

Introduction: According to Newton's theory of gravity, all bodies possess the force of attraction called "gravity." Larger masses, such as the Sun, attract smaller masses, such as the planets and comets, more strongly, causing the smaller masses to move toward the larger masses. In our solar system, the planets orbit the Sun due to the force of the Sun's

 

Materials

 
 
 Flat Magnet (the stronger the better)
Ball bearing (at least 8mm)
Large piece of cardstock (~1ft.x3ft.)
 
 
gravity pulling them into this elliptical path. Comets soaring through the galaxy are curved toward the Sun due to gravity's pull. In this demonstration, we use the force of magnetism to model how the force of gravity reaches out and pulls comets toward the Sun and how planets stay in orbit.

Setup: Place cardstock on table or floor. Place magnet underneath one end of the cardstock. Make sure the magnet does not create a significant bump in the cardstock. If it does, raise the cardstock so there is no bump.

Procedure: Roll a steel ball bearing down the length of the cardstock. Try to roll it near the hidden magnet. Observe what happens to the path of the ball bearing when it comes close enough to the magnet to react to its magnetic field. Can you make the ball bearing turn 45 degrees? 90 degrees? 180 degrees? 360 degrees? Try to roll the ball bearing at the right speed and distance from the magnet so it curls around it and comes back to you. This may take many efforts.

Observations:.........Read on.....http://einstein.stanford.edu/content/education/EducatorsGuide/Page24.html

Posted by Jay Roberts at 03:28 AM | Permalink

An Analysis of the solar system and how the planets line up, as magnets, with the Sun shows a variety of positions. Earth and Mercury, both with magnetic cores and in close proximity to the Sun, align alongside of the Sun attempting to form one large magnet. Bar magnets, free to move, will snap together side by side to form one large magnet, but planets held apart from each other or their Sun by the gravity Repulsion Force cannot actually touch. The large gaseous planets, Jupiter and Saturn, are in a Reversed polarity, as we have explained, as they are simply a conduit for the flow of magnetic particles, not themselves magnets. And Neptune and Pluto align themselves with the magnetic flow lines, from afar, as iron ore shavings will do when laid next to a magnet. All the planets being, however, on the Ecliptic and none approaching the Sun to pass by sliding past its S Pole as Planet X is doing. Thus, where the alignment of Planet X to be in alignment with the Sun holds when Planet X, like the other planets, is alongside the Sun, when sliding past either of the Sun’s pole as it passes the Sun, there is likely to be a tilt. How else does a magnet move from being an end-to-end magnet, to becoming a side-by-side magnet, thence returning to an end-to-end posture? It tilts. Temporarily.

During the late December sweep of the Sweeping Arm of the Sun the effect on Earth was that both planets ....Read on......http://www.zetatalk.com/index/zeta66.htm

Posted by Jay Roberts at 03:22 AM | Permalink

 

 

Posted by Jay Roberts at 03:15 AM | Permalink

Perhaps the greatest theoretical achievement of physics in the 19th century was the discovery of electromagnetic waves. The first hint was an unexpected connection between electric phenomena and the velocity of light.

Electric forces in nature come in two kinds. First, there is the electric attraction or repulsion between (+) and (-) electric charges. It is possible to use this to define a unit of electric charge, as the charge which repels a similar charge at a distance of, say, 1 meter, with a force of unit strength (actual formulas make this precise).

But second, there is also the attraction and repulsion between parallel electric currents. One could then define the unit of current, as the current which, when flowing in a straight wire, attracts a similar current in a parallel wire 1 meter away with a force of unit strength, for every meter of the wires’ length.

But electric current and charge are related! We could have just as well based the unit of current on the unit of charge—say, as the current in which one unit of charge passes each second through any cross section of the wire. This second definition turns out to be quite different, and if meters and seconds are used in all definitions, the ratio of the two units of current turns out to be the speed of light, 300,000,000 meters per second.

In Faraday’s time the speed of light was known, although not as accurately as it is today. It was first derived around 1676 by Ole (Olaus) Roemer, a Danish astronomer working in Paris. Roemer tried to predict eclipses of Jupiter’s moon Io (mentioned later here in an altogether different connection) and he found a difference between actual and predicted eclipse times, which grew and then decreased again as the Earth circled the Sun. He correctly guessed the reason, namely, as the Earth moved in its orbit, its distance to Jupiter also went up and down, and light needed extra time to cover the extra distance...Read on...http://www.sciencemaster.com/jump/physical/magnetic_waves.php

Posted by Jay Roberts at 05:28 AM | Permalink

Magnetic Properties Experiments on the Mars Pathfinder Lander: Preliminary Results

S. F. Hviid, M. B. Madsen, H. P. Gunnlaugsson, W. Goetz, J. M. Knudsen, R. B. Hargraves, P. Smith, D. Britt, A. R. Dinesen, C. T. Mogensen, M. Olsen, C. T. Pedersen, L. Vistisen

Many of the particles currently suspended in the martian atmosphere are magnetic, with an average saturation magnetization of about 4 A·m2/kg (amperes times square meters per kilogram). The particles appear to consist of claylike aggregates stained or cemented with ferric oxide (Fe2O3); at least some of the stain and cement is probably maghemite (gamma -Fe2O3). The presence of the gamma  phase would imply that Fe2+ ions leached from the bedrock, passing through a state as free Fe2+ ions dissolved in liquid water. These particles could be a freeze-dried precipitate from ground water poured out on the surface. An alternative is that the magnetic particles are titanomagnetite occurring in palagonite and inherited directly from a basaltic precursor.

S. F. Hviid, M. B. Madsen, H. P. Gunnlaugsson, W. Goetz, J. M. Knudsen, A. R. Dinesen, C. T. Mogensen, M. Olsen, C. T. Pedersen, L. Vistisen, Oersted Laboratory, Niels Bohr Institute for Astronomy, Physics, and Geophysics, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
R. B. Hargraves, Department of Geosciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.
P. Smith and D. Britt, Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA.


Both Viking landers had a weak and a strong magnet mounted on the backhoe of their soil samplers ....More....http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/278/5344/1768

Posted by Jay Roberts at 04:02 AM | Permalink

Earth energy. It can't be seen or tasted and it doesn't have an odor. But, the effects of Earth energy can be experienced in all of those ways. It isn't loud, but it can be heard. It can't be touched, but it can definitely be felt.

 

Our ancestors knew that ley lines, earth grids and vortexes were energy sources and centers that were to be considered holy. They knew that Mother Earth supplied their physical needs, cured their ills and balanced their spirit. Mother Earth had also supplied the invisible forces of Earth energy. They respected the strength of these unseen powers and knew they were a place to heal physical, emotional and spiritual pain. Used as a place of communion with the Creator, our ancestors knew that these energy points uplifted the group or individual consciousness and fortified the soul.  Read on.....http://www.shirleymaclaine.com/articles/sites/article-315

Posted by Jay Roberts at 03:51 AM | Permalink

In 1950 the Canadian government authorized a short-lived program designed to study UFOs.  Here is the program's report by Wilbert B. Smith, Engineer-in-Charge, Project Magnet.

During the past five years there has been accumulating in the files of the United States Air Force, Royal Canadian Air Force, Department of Transport, and various other agencies, an impressive number of reports on sightings of unidentified flying objects popularly known as "Flying Saucers".  These files contain reports by creditable people on things which they have seen in the sky, tracked on radar, or photographed.  They are reports made in good faith by normal, honest people, and there is little if any reason to doubt their veracity.  Many sightings undoubtedly are due to unusual views of common objects or phenomena, and are quite normal, but there are many sightings which cannot be explained so easily.

Project Magnet was authorized in December, 1950, by Commander C. P. Edwards, then Deputy Minister of Transport for Air Services, for the purpose of making as detailed a study of the saucer phenomena as could be made within the framework of existing establishments.  The Broadcast and Measures Section of Telecommunications Division were given the directive to go ahead with this work with whatever assistance could be obtained informally from outside sources such as Defense Research Board and National Research Council.

It is perfectly natural in the human thinking mechanism to try and fit observations into an established pattern.  It is only when observations stubbornly refuse to be so fitted that we become disturbed.  When this happens we may, and usually do, take one of three courses.  First, we may deny completely the validity of the observations; or second, we may pass the whole subject off as something of no consequence; or third, we may accept the discrepancies as real and go to work on them.  In the matter of Saucer Sightings all three of these reactions have been strikingly apparent.  The first two approaches are obviously negative and from which a definite conclusion can never be reached.  It is the third approach, acceptance of the data and subsequent research that is dealt with in this report.

The basic data with which we have to work consist largely of sightings reported as they are observed throughout Canada in a purely random manner......Read on....http://www.aufosg.com/page218.html

Posted by Jay Roberts at 03:42 AM | Permalink

This project was a study of UFOs carried out by the Department of Transport (DOT) in Canada in the early 1950s. It was set up in December 1950 under the direction of Wilbert B. Smith, then a senior radio engineer, Broadcast and Measurements Section.

The project was quite small; it used facilities of DOT, with assistance from other government departments, including the Defense Research Board (DRB) and the National Research Council (NRC). The project was an outgrowth of work already being done by Smith and a group of colleagues within DOT on the collapse of the Earth’s magnetic field as a source of energy. It was the belief of many that "FLYING SAUCERS" were operating on magnetic principles and it was thought the DOT work might explain their operation. ...Read on....http://www.ufoevidence.org/documents/doc1800.htm

Posted by Jay Roberts at 03:38 AM | Permalink

The Earth Grid, Human Levitation and Gravity Anomolies


Diamagnetic Gravity Vortexes
by Richard Lefors Clark, Ph.D.

Source: Extracted from: "Anti-Gravity and the World Grid".
Edited by David Hatcher-Childress
Adventures Unlimited Press, Stelle, Illinois, 60919

Knowledge of the Earth Grid or "crystalline Earth" is very ancient and has been utilized by a number of civilizations. The pyramids and ley lines are on the power transfer lines of the natural Earth gravity Grid all over the world. The Earth Grid is comprised of the geometrical flow lines of gravity energy in the structure of the Earth itself.

While the subject of the Earth Grid has by now been covered in a considerable number of publications, one point in the Grid, marked by a long and strange history, at the eastern tip of Lake Ontario, is worth special mention. Most interesting here are two individuals, living one hundred years apart, who were both directly affected by this same Earth Grid point. These men were Daniel Home, the 1 9th century psychic, and Wilbert Smith, the 20th century scientist.

Daniel Home is the world famous levitator of the 1 9th century who lived in this Lake Ontario Grid point area...Want more?? Raed on.....http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shadowlands/6583/project156.html

Posted by Jay Roberts at 03:33 AM | Permalink

Question:  It would appear that the earth's magnetic poles have 'swapped' many times, with N & S switching positions.  If this should happen in the current era, what would be the effect? Obviously all navigational instrumentation would be affected, but what about the effect of a reversal of the magnetic field on electronic devices and electro-magnetic equipment? Would such a massive change affect national power grids? SBradley, School Dist.  Technology Director steve... Read on......http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/phy99/phy99357.htm

Posted by Jay Roberts at 11:25 PM | Permalink

Question:  It would appear that the earth's magnetic poles have 'swapped' many times, with N & S switching positions.  If this should happen in the current era, what would be the effect? Obviously all navigational instrumentation would be affected, but what about the effect of a reversal of the magnetic field on electronic devices and electro-magnetic equipment? Would such a massive change affect national power grids? SBradley, School Dist.  Technology Director steve... Read on......http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/phy99/phy99357.htm

Posted by Jay Roberts at 11:25 PM | Permalink


       By compiling all the solar wind data gathered in the space age, NASA scientists have concluded that even though the solar magnetic field is constantly changing, it always returns to its original shape and position.

       "We now know that the Sun's magnetic field has a memory and returns to approximately the same configuration in each 11- year solar cycle," said Dr. Marcia Neugebauer, a Distinguished Visiting Scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "Current theories imply that the field is generated by random, churning motions within the Sun and should have no long- term memory. Despite this expectation, the underlying magnetic structure remains fixed at the same solar longitude."

       "It's interesting that the solar magnetic field varies in strength and direction, but not in longitude," said Dr. Edward Smith, senior research scientist at JPL.

       The solar wind is composed of charged particles ejected from the Sun that flow continuously through interplanetary space. The solar wind carries part of the Sun's magnetic field into space. Before completing this research, scientists knew that features of the solar wind reaching the Earth tended to repeat about every 27 days, said Neugebauer. The new information pinpoints the repetition interval at 27 days and 43 minutes and shows that the Sun has kept this steady rhythm, much like a metronome, for at least 38 years.

       This pattern escaped previous detection because it is a very subtle statistical effect. There are many larger variations in the solar wind that come and go, which largely mask the underlying pattern. This repetitive behavior can't be seen if these data are examined for only a few months or years, but it was revealed in this 38-year database.........Read on....http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/releases/2000/sunmagfield.html

Posted by Jay Roberts at 03:53 AM | Permalink

XMM-Newton image of star AB Aurigae
XMM-Newton image of star AB Aurigae
 
XMM-Newton reveals a magnetic surprise
22 February 2007
ESA's X-ray observatory XMM-Newton has revealed evidence for a magnetic field in space where astronomers never expected to find one. The magnetic field surrounds a young star called AB Aurigae and provides a possible solution to a twenty-year-old puzzle.
 
At 2.7 times the mass of the Sun, AB Aurigae is one of the most massive stars in the Taurus-Auriga star-forming cloud. Although amongst nearly 400 smaller stars, its ultraviolet radiation plays a key role in shaping the cloud. Its massive status puts it in a class known as Herbig stars, named after their discoverer George Herbig.

As part of a large programme to survey Taurus-Auriga at X-ray wavelengths, XMM-Newton systematically targeted AB Aurigae and the other young stars in this region, using its European Photon Imaging Camera (EPIC). AB Aurigae stood out brightly in the image, indicating that it was releasing X-rays. Read on......http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEM01WBE8YE_Life_0.html

Posted by Jay Roberts at 03:50 AM | Permalink

Future spacecraft may surf the magnetic fields of Earth and other planets, taking previously unfeasible routes around the solar system, according to a proposal funded by NASA's Institute for Advanced Concepts. The electrically charged craft would not need rockets or propellant of any kind.

Mason Peck of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, US, has received a grant to study the idea, which is based on the fact that magnetic fields exert forces on electrically charged objects.

He says a satellite could charge itself up in one of two ways – either by firing a beam of charged particles into space, or simply by allowing a radioactive isotope to emit charged particles. The charged satellite would then be gently pushed by Earth's rotating magnetic field, enabling it to change orbit and even escape to interplanetary space.

Early signs suggest the idea may work. In one experiment at Binghamton University in New York, US, Peck's colleague Jim Brownridge connected a small conducting sphere to a piece of radioactive Americium 241 inside a vacuum chamber, successfully charging up the sphere.

But the amount of charge held by a sphere at a given voltage, a quantity known as its capacitance, is not very large. Long, thin filaments, on the other hand, have a lot of charge-holding surface area, so one possible design involves many filaments attached to the spacecraft. The setup would have a rather comical look – because of the static charge, the filaments would stick out in all directions, like newly brushed dry hair.

Radioactive stocking

A cylindrical mesh of fibres – resembling a stocking – could also be attached to the spacecraft. To charge itself up, the stocking could be coated with a radioisotope, and one of the most powerful would be polonium-210, the isotope used to poison former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko. But it should be safe to use on the stocking, says Peck, "as long as people working on the spacecraft don't lick it".

Radioisotopes provide far more charging power pound-for-pound than a particle beam, which would have to be powered by bulky solar cells. But they present their own technical problems. "We'd like to be able to modulate the charge," says Peck. "But how do you turn off an isotope?" He thinks the solution will involve changing the geometry of the charge-holder to alter its capacitance........Read on.....................http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn11375-spacecraft-may-surf-the-solar-system-on-magnetic-fields-.html

Posted by Jay Roberts at 03:40 AM | Permalink

The first-ever magnetic fields in the universe arose within 370,000 years of the big bang, a new analysis suggests. The work relies on standard physics, unlike some previous theories, and may shed light on how the very first stars grew.

Relatively confined magnetic fields like those in the Earth and Sun are generated by the turbulent mixing of conducting fluids in their cores. But large-scale fields tangled within galaxies and clusters of galaxies are harder to explain by fluid mixing alone. That is because most galaxies have rotated only a few dozen times since they formed.

"The galaxies have not made a lot of rotations during their whole existence, so it's not clear how much amplification one can get," says Dam Thanh Son at the University of Washington in Seattle, US, who was not involved in the new study. "One needs some initial, small magnetic field.".....Read on ....http://space.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8544

Posted by Jay Roberts at 03:34 AM | Permalink

 

 
Antennae x-ray image G.Fabbiano et al./NASA/SAO/CXC
Neutron stars galore. Each point-like source in this x-ray image of the Antennae Galaxies is a neutron star or black hole devouring a companion star. Space is strongly warped near these compact objects, so any nearby magnetic fields are likely to be distorted as well. The tension in bent field lines may in turn reduce the curvature of space. (Larger image and more info here.)


Magnetic field lines do not like to bend. When you try to press two magnets together the wrong way, you feel this tendency directly--the field lines resist being squashed to the sides. This magnetic "tension" may have surprising effects when space itself warps, according to a paper in the 11 June PRL. The author finds that when spacetime bends in response to matter, the magnetic field lines push back and try to flatten spacetime. This "magnetocurvature" effect would be strongest when spacetime is most strongly curved--near neutron stars and black holes, and in the very early Universe. Magnetocurvature effects might be measurable in gravitational radiation reaching Earth; they also seem to exclude some theories of the Universe's earliest moments.....................................Read on..http://focus.aps.org/story/v7/st27

Posted by Jay Roberts at 03:19 AM | Permalink

The Earth is surrounded by a magnetosphere, to the action of which, all the living things on Earth adapted.

Earth’s magnetism is very weak, between 0.3 gauss at the Equator to 0.7 gauss at the Poles.

Researchers discovered magnetic bacteria living in the ponds and lakes, presenting inside their cells a chain of magnetic crystals, and those located in the Northern Hemisphere swim in the direction of the magnetic north, while those from the Southern Hemisphere swim in the direction of the magnetic south.(These bacteria live in environments with poor oxygen supply)......Read ON...http://news.softpedia.com/news/Earth-039-s-Magnetism-and-Life-49050.shtml

Posted by Jay Roberts at 05:04 AM | Permalink

James Clerk Maxwell demonstrated that the light is made of electric and magnetic fields that change very rapidly. When you walk across a rug in the winter (and there isn't very much water in the air), you can collect electric charges that make your hair stand on end. You can sometimes give other people shocks by moving these electric charges from you to them (and they can shock you by doing the same).

Your hair stands on end because the electric charges create a "force field" that pushes on other charges. We call that force field an electric field because electrical charges make it.

You are probably also familiar with magnets. If you look closely at a magnet, you will find that it always has two "poles" (refrigerator magnets are flat - with one pole on one side of the magnet and the other pole on the other side - so finding the magnet's poles can be confusing). The Earth is also a magnet - with a North Pole and a South Pole. If we suspend a small magnet so that it is free to turn, one of the magnet's poles will turn until it points north. The magnet turns because the Earth's magnetic field creates a force that pushes the magnet to point north and south.

Maxwell's work showed that electricity and magnetism were connected. His equations showed that if electric charges are pushed or pulled, the changes in the speed of the charge create magnetic fields. In the same way, if magnetic fields change, they can create electric fields. This understanding allowed engineers to create electric generators that have big magnets. The generators create flowing electricity by pushing electric charges in wires with magnetic fields created by the magnets....READ ON...http://eosweb.larc.nasa.gov/EDDOCS/electric.html

Posted by Jay Roberts at 05:13 AM | Permalink


graphic depiction of lithium-6
This graphic depiction shows a gas cloud of lithium-6 atoms after it was cooled and subjected to a magnetic field. The 'before' view shows that the cloud resembled a cigar shape just after it was released from the laser trap. Later on, the cloud has expanded dramatically in the perpendicular direction and assumed an elliptical shape.
+ Larger image
 

Research that makes ultra-cold atoms extremely attractive to one another may help test current theories of how all matter behaves - a breakthrough that might lead to advanced transportation systems, more efficient energy sources and new tests of astrophysical theories.

The experiment was conducted by a team led by Dr. John Thomas, a physics professor at Duke University, Durham, N.C., under a grant from NASA's Biological and Physical Research Program through the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

The team manipulated a type of interacting atoms that behaved like fermions -- sub-atomic particles that are the building blocks of all matter, but are difficult to study directly. Normally, these atoms, called fermionic atoms, avoid each other at all costs. In this case, the researchers confined and cooled a lithium-6 gas cloud of atoms, and then introduced a magnetic field that acted as a matchmaker, inducing the atoms to attract one another strongly. READ ON

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news-print.cfm?release=2002-226

Posted by Jay Roberts at 05:10 AM | Permalink

Scientists hope that an unusual experiment slated for launch on the space shuttle this summer will reveal how plants know up from down.

When gardeners poke a seed into the ground, they never worry in which direction it lays. Give it enough water and food and care, and sure enough, its root will grow downward and its stem will sprout upward -- every time! Lay the seed upside-down, and the root and stem would still find their proper positions.

Photo of flax plants.

Top right: The seeds of flax plants will be sprouted in orbit to help figure out how plants sense gravity. Image courtesy Flax Council of Canada.

How do plants do it? We humans know up from down (even with our eyes closed) because we have a complex organ in our inner ear that senses gravity's pull and signals the brain. But plants have no such organ. It's a puzzle............READ ON....http://weboflife.ksc.nasa.gov/currentResearch/currentResearchFlight/sowingSeeds.htm

Posted by Jay Roberts at 05:05 AM | Permalink

 

April 4, 2006: Thirty-plus years ago on the moon, Apollo astronauts made an important discovery: Moondust can be a major nuisance. The fine powdery grit was everywhere and had a curious way of getting into things. Moondust plugged bolt holes, fouled tools, coated astronauts' visors and abraded their gloves. Very often while working on the surface, they had to stop what they were doing to clean their cameras and equipment using large--and mostly ineffective--brushes.

Dealing with "the dust problem" is going to be a priority for the next generation of NASA explorers. But how? Professor Larry Taylor, director of the Planetary Geosciences Institute at the University of Tennessee, believes he has an answer: "Magnets."

Above: In Taylor's lab, moondust scattered onto a wire mesh lines up with a magnet inserted below......READ ON....http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/04apr_magneticmoondust.htm

Posted by Jay Roberts at 04:56 AM | Permalink

Montreal -- Scientists have found that a rare and enigmatic class of neutron stars, of which only five are known, are actually magnetars -- exotic stars with magnetic fields trillions of times stronger than the Sun's or Earth's, so powerful that they could strip a credit card clean 100,000 miles (about 160,000 kilometers) away.

These neutron stars, called Anomalous X-ray Pulsars (AXP), had defied physical explanation since the first such object was discovered in 1982. The newly exposed AXP-magnetar relationship is featured in the September 12 issue of Nature, based on data obtained with NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer spacecraft.

The finding, by a team led by Prof. Victoria Kaspi of the McGill University Department of Physics in Montreal, Canada, essentially doubles the number of known magnetars.....................RAED ON.....http://universe.nasa.gov/press/2002/020911a.html

Posted by Jay Roberts at 04:51 AM | Permalink

The magnetosphere is that area of space, around the Earth, that is controlled by the Earth's magnetic field.

Did you know that the Earth's environment extends all the way from the sun to the Earth and beyond? It is not an empty wasteland of space. Instead, near-Earth space is full of streaming particles, electromagnetic radiation, and constantly changing electric and magnetic fields. All of these things make up our magnetosphere.

It is important to learn as much about this space around the Earth as we would about any other part of the Earth's environment. The magnetosphere helps to protect our Earth from the danger of the Sun's solar wind. Let's find out how ...

READ ON... http://science.nasa.gov/ssl/pad/sppb/edu/magnetosphere/bullets.html

Posted by Jay Roberts at 10:54 PM | Permalink

OK Enough is enough - Now you’re talking about magnets and Martians?? Well - yes we are..magnets here, magnets there (mars) magnets everywhere ......Be careful you might start believing this stuff about magnets if you read on......

 

see captionDecember 20, 2000 -- The case for ancient life on Mars looks better than ever after scientists announced last week that they had discovered magnetic crystals inside a Martian meteorite -- crystals that, here on Earth, are produced only by microscopic life forms.

The magnetic compound, called magnetite or Fe3O4, is common enough on our planet. It is present, for example, in household video and audio tapes. But only certain types of terrestrial bacteria, which can assemble the crystals atom by atom, produce magnetite structures that are chemically pure and free from defects.

Scientists studying the Allan Hills meteorite, a 4-billion-year-old rock from Mars that landed in Antarctica about 13,000 years ago, found just such crystals deep inside the space rock................READ ON..............http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2000/ast20dec_1.htm

Posted by Jay Roberts at 10:42 PM | Permalink

View of Earth from Space     Earth's Birth     Age of the Earth     Distribution of Elements on the Earth     Mass of the Earth     AOS vs. AU     Why is Earth Spherical?     How Far to the Center of the Earth?     Earth's Core     Why is Earth's Center So Hot?     Was the Earth a Star?     Weight at Earth's Core     Gravity at Earth's Core     Earth as a Spherical Shell     How Do We Know About Earth's Layers?     Earth's Gravity Variation     What Keeps Us On the Earth?     Speed of Earth's Rotation

Posted by Jay Roberts at 10:29 PM | Permalink

 The word "tides" is a generic term used to define the alternating rise and fall in sea level with respect to the land, produced by the gravitational attraction of the moon and the sun. To a much smaller extent, tides also occur in large lakes, the atmosphere, and within the solid crust of the earth, acted upon by these same gravitational forces of the moon and sun....Read ON...http://home.hiwaay.net/~krcool/Astro/moon/moontides/

Posted by Jay Roberts at 04:30 PM | Permalink

Could It be the earth and the moon are both very large magnets and when the two get closer their magnetic fields react to each other? I know the earth is a magnet, what about the moon? Also, I live in missouri where there is no ocean, how can I predict when the moon is cloest to me as in a high tide without using a computer to do the work for me?......................READ ON..............................http://van.physics.uiuc.edu/qa/listing.php?id=4211

Posted by Jay Roberts at 04:21 PM | Permalink

It is becoming more and more interesting the more we read about magnetic highways and pathways our forbearers travel (that is if you believe in evolution), So much knowledge and so little time to learn and live a life, make a living etc etc. We just learned strep bacteria lived on the moon for 2 1/2 years after being left there by an astronaut - so much knowledge, so little time to learn... So much in front of us we don’t understand or even see so much of the time – I mean – who knew birds and fish might follow magnetic pathways??? This next article is interesting - ENJOY!!

Inspired by recent posts on this list about strandings of white and whale sharks, I have been pondering the matter of shark strandings in general. Following is a synopsis of my thoughts on this topic, which I hope will be of interest to users of this list and will spark an exchange of ideas about this most intriguing topic:

Shark strandings or beaching events are something of a mystery. For fishes that are generally regarded as being negatively buoyant in seawater, these events occur with surprising frequency yet with little or no apparent regularity.

Classic studies by Bone & Roberts (1969) and Baldridge (1970, 1972) on tissue densities and buoyancy in sharks revealed that due largely to the accumulation of low-density oils in the large liver, sharks are only slightly heavier than the medium through which they swim. Baldridge (1974) noted that a 1 015-pound tiger shark (Galeocerdo cuvier) tested at the Mote Marine Laboratory had, when immersed in sea water, an apparent weight of only 7.3 pounds (that works out to about 0.72% of its weight in air). Thus, sharks must invest very little energy in order to prevent sinking.

In cool temperate zones of both Hemispheres, basking sharks (Cetorhinus maximus) wash ashore with surprising frequency, and - in various stages of decay - have frequently been misinterpreted as 'sea monsters' (see Heuvelmans 1965 for a discussion of this matter). Although phylogenetically allied with the lamnids (the family which includes the white, makos, porbeagle and salmon sharks) the basking shark shares many hydrostatic features with deep-sea squaloids and hexanchoids (the orders which embrace the dogfishes and the cow sharks, respectively), including an exceptionally long body cavity filled with an enormous liver (up to 25% of the total body weight in C. maximus; up to 35% in certain deep-sea squaloids) which is low in vitamin content but rich in low-density oils (870-880 kg/m3 compared with about 1028kg/m3 for seawater), including a high percentage (70-98%) of squalene. Since the gastrointestinal tract (rich in autochthonous bacteria and other microbes) is typically one of the first organ systems to break down upon death of a host animal, it is tempting to speculate that the gases liberated through the processes of decomposition may be sufficient to tip the hydrostatic balance, rendering the carcass as a whole positively buoyant. Time and tide may eventually carry the carcass to shore, where it may be reported by a terrestrial primate with limited swimming capability but boundless curiosity.

Compared with their elephantine cousin, the basking shark, lamnids have a relatively short body cavity and smaller liver (about 15% of the total body weight). Yet these sharks, too, occasionally wash ashore - sometimes in moribund or freshly expired yet apparently uninjured condition. Users of this list will no doubt recall recent reports from South Africa of large white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) washed ashore - in one disgusting case, to be beaten and fairly torn asunder by irrational and unsympathetic 'beach apes'. From near my own base of operations, in British Columbia, Canada, no fewer than six white sharks have been found stranded or beached in the province since 1962, mostly from the western coasts of the Queen Charlotte Islands. The most recent of these was a 5.2-metre-long male beached at Long Inlet, Graham Island, BC, on 16 December 1987. List-user and frequent contributor Ian Fergusson can, no doubt, provide information on white shark strandings from elsewhere, particularly from the Mediterranean and off southern Africa. In recent years, researchers have noticed that each spring a small number of salmon sharks (Lamna ditropis) beach themselves in central and southern California. This phenomenon is poorly understood and is being studied. This species is most common in continental offshore and epipelagic waters, from the surface down to a depth of at least 152 metres, but it has been known to come inshore - sometimes just beyond the breaker zone - which may contribute to this phenomenon. List-user Sean Van Sommeran can perhaps favor us with more information about this intriguing mystery.

Some time ago, a list-user (who's name escapes me at the moment), asked whether shark strandings may be somehow similar to those of whales. At the time, I thought the notion was charmingly naive, but have since had time to reconsider.

Klinowska (1988) compared records of mass cetacean strandings in Britain and the United States against geomagnetic maps (which plot variations in the intensity of magnetic fields at the Earth's surface caused by differences in the underlying rock; these variations are represented as contour lines, so that areas of high magnetism appear as 'hills' and areas of low magnetism as 'valleys'). Klinowska's analysis revealed that most mass strandings and virtually all repeated strandings occurred where the magnetic valleys were oriented perpendicular to the shore. This sensational finding suggests that at least some whales navigate by following a magnetic map of the ocean floor. On land, magnetic variations are very irregular and there are many visual cues to guide navigation. There are no such landmarks in the vast, dark ocean. But there are regular magnetic variations. Magnetic hills and valleys stretch for huge distances across the ocean floor, and toothed whales seem to use the magnetic contour lines as invisible 'roads'. These magnetic freeways often follow continental margins, but not always. Klinowska theorizes that whales may strand when they follow these magnetic roads onto shore. Klinowska has also suggested that the daily pattern of variation in the total geomagnetic field may function as a biological 'travel clock' for whales; solar activity can affect this pattern, possibly causing irregular fluctuations which disturb the clock. Therefore, whale mass strandings may be the magnetic equivalent of traffic accidents.

It is not yet clear how whales sense Earth's magnetic field. Evidence is accumulating from studies carried out in Germany which suggest that cetacean retinas (which contain magnetite) are sensitive to magnetic fields of an..........Read on......http://www.elasmo-research.org/education/topics/b_strandings.htm

Posted by Jay Roberts at 05:26 PM | Permalink

You never know what your going to fing on this blog - pretty interesting.....http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archive/releases/2001/19/video/a 

Posted by Jay Roberts at 06:24 AM | Permalink

The study of the magnetism found in the planets and the sun of our solar system has been a very exciting field during the last 100 years.

Earth

Of course, trying to understand the magnetism within our own planet earth has been going on for a very long time, and only recently (within the 1990s) has a reasonable model been made which closely mimics how the magnetic field is created and how it changes over time........Read on..http://www.coolmagnetman.com/magspace.htm

Posted by Jay Roberts at 06:21 AM | Permalink

These notes have been written to support your learning. They are not a susbtitute for attending the lectures. At the lectures you will see demonstrations, carry out simple experiments, discuss the underlying physical process in greater depth and obtain lecture diagrams not included in these notes, in order to complete your learning experience.

There is a story that a Cretan shepherd by the name of Magnés, whilst tending sheep on the slopes of Mount Ida, found that his iron tipped crook and the nails of his boots were attracted to the ground. To find the source of the attraction he dug up the ground to find stones that we now refer to as lodestones (also spelled loadstone; lode means to lead or to attract) which contain magnetite, a natural magnetic material Fe3O4. The story may be apocryphal but the earliest discovery of the properties of lodestone was either by the Greeks or Chinese. Pliny the Elder (23-79 AD Roman) wrote of a hill near the river Indus that was made entirely of a stone that attracted iron.

The unexplained nature of the magnetic attraction was ripe for exploitation by story tellers and it became difficult to separate fact from fancy.

Read on........http://www.newi.ac.uk/BUCKLEYC/magnet.htm

Posted by Jay Roberts at 06:12 AM | Permalink

After introducing our newest product "The Edison" Tungsten Carbide Magnetic bracelet - we just want to know more and share more about this amazing metal..

Background

 

After Scheele’s discovery of "Tungsten" in 1781, it took an additional 150 years before his and his successors’ efforts led to the application of tungsten carbide in the industry.

 

Cemented Carbide

 

The main use of tungsten (in the form of tungsten carbide) is now in the manufacture of cemented carbide. Cemented carbide, or hardmetal as it is often called, is a material made by "cementing" very hard tungsten monocarbide (WC) grains in a binder matrix of tough cobalt metal by liquid phase sintering.

The combination of WC and metallic cobalt as a binder is a well-adjusted system not only with regard to its properties, but also to its sintering behaviour.

The high solubility of WC in cobalt at high temperatures and a very good wetting of WC by the liquid cobalt binder result in an excellent densification during liquid phase sintering and in a pore-free structure. As a result of this, a material is obtained which combines high strength, toughness and high hardness.

History

The beginning of tungsten carbide production may be traced to the early 1920’s, when the German electrical bulb company, Osram, looked for alternatives to the expensive diamond drawing dies used in the production of tungsten wire.

These attempts led to the invention of cemented carbide, which was soon produced and marketed by several companies for various applications where its high wear resistance was particularly important. The first tungsten carbide-cobalt grades were soon successfully applied in the cutting and milling of cast iron and, in the early 1930’s, the pioneering cemented carbide companies launched the first steel-milling grades which, in addition to tungsten carbide and cobalt, also contained carbides of titanium and tantalum.

By the addition of titanium carbide and tantalum carbide, the high temperature wear resistance, the hot hardness and the oxidation stability of hardmetals have been considerably improved, and the WC-TiC-(Ta,Nb)C-Co hardmetals are excellent cutting tools for the machining of steel. Compared to high speed steel, the cutting speed increased from 25 to 50 m/min to 250 m/min for turning and milling of steel, which revolutionized productivity in many industries.

Shortly afterwards, the revolution in mining tools began. The first mining tools with cemented carbide tips increased the lifetime of rock drills by a factor of at least ten compared to a steel-based drilling tool.

Read on...... http://www.azom.com/details.asp?ArticleID=1203

Posted by Jay Roberts at 06:21 PM | Permalink

Talc is the softest mineral, the standard for hardness grade 1 in the Mohs scale. Your fingernail will easily scratch it. Talc has a greasy feel and a translucent, soapy look. Talc is very useful, and not just because it can be ground into talcum powder—it's a common filler in paints, rubber and plastics too. Other less precise names for talc are steatite or soapstone, but those are rocks containing impure talc rather than the pure mineral.

 

Read on......http://geology.about.com/library/bl/images/bltalc.htm

Posted by Jay Roberts at 06:13 PM | Permalink

Diamond is the hardest mineral, number 10 in the Mohs scale of mineral hardness. This 4-millimeter specimen shows several faces of diamond's natural crystal form, which is an octahedron—imagine two pyramids joined base to base so their tips point opposite directions. The flat triangles on the diamond correspond to the faces of the octahedron. Crystallographers call them (111) faces, and they are the hardest part of the diamond. Diamond crystals usually have rounded, grooved edges as can be seen next to the flat faces.

Read on...http://geology.about.com/library/bl/images/bldiamond.htm

Posted by Jay Roberts at 06:09 PM | Permalink

The Mohs scale of mineral hardness consists of ten different minerals, but some other common objects can also be used: these include the fingernail (hardness 2.5), a steel knife or window glass (5.5), a steel file (6.5), and a penny.

Read on.....http://geology.about.com/od/mineral_ident/a/coinmohs.htm

Posted by Jay Roberts at 06:06 PM | Permalink

The Mohs scale was devised by Friedrich Mohs in 1812 and has been a valuable aid to identifying minerals ever since. Here are the ten standard minerals in the Mohs scale.......

Read on ......http://geology.about.com/library/bl/blmohsscale.htm

  Read full story

Posted by Jay Roberts at 10:35 PM | Permalink

Ocean Color Viewed from Space

What color is the ocean? The ocean reflects the color of the sky, but even on cloudless days the color of the ocean is not a consistent blue. Phytoplankton, microscopic plant life that floats freely in the lighted surface waters, may alter the color of the water. When a great number of organisms are concentrated in an area, the plankton changes the color of the ocean surface. This is called a "bloom." This photograph shows such a change in color. It was taken by astronauts aboard the space shuttle looking down at the coast of Angola.

Microscopic plant life is at the base of the marine food web and is the primary food and energy source for the ocean ecosystem. Phytoplankton convert nutrients into plant material by using sunlight with the help of the green pigment chlorophyll. The chlorophyll pigments in the plants absorb light, and the plants themselves scatter light. Together, these processes change the color of the ocean as seen by an observer looking downward into the sea. Very productive water with a high concentration of plankton appears blue-green. Very pure water appears deep-blue, almost black. ............................Click Here to Read on

Posted by Jay Roberts at 05:01 AM | Permalink

Feb 07

Magnetism


     So - Here we are today asking questions about magnets, still trying to understand them and our relationship if any to them....The more you know the more you realize we do not know....Magnetism - lets read......

The ancient Greeks, originally those near the city of Magnesia, and also the early Chinese knew about strange and rare stones (possibly chunks of iron ore struck by lightning) with the power to attract iron. A steel needle stroked with such a "lodestone" became "magnetic" as well, and around 1000 the Chinese found that such a needle, when freely suspended, pointed north-south.

    The magnetic compass soon spread to Europe. Columbus used it when he crossed the Atlantic ocean, noting not only that the needle deviated slightly from exact north (as indicated by the stars) but also that the deviation changed during the voyage. Around 1600 William Gilbert, physician to Queen Elizabeth I of England, proposed an explanation: the Earth itself was a giant magnet, with its magnetic poles some distance away from its geographic ones (i.e. near the points defining the axis around which the Earth turns). ............http://www-spof.gsfc.nasa.gov/Education/Imagnet.html

Posted by Jay Roberts at 04:24 AM | Permalink

In a research first that could lead to a new generation of hard drives capable of storing thousands of movies per square inch, physicists at Rice University have decoded the three-dimensional structure of a tornado-like magnetic vortex no larger than a red blood cell.

 

"Understanding the nuances and functions of magnetic vortices is likely going to be a key in creating next-generation magnetic storage devices," said lead researcher Carl Rau, professor of physics and astronomy. "It's widely believed this technology will support storage densities in the range of terabits per square inch, and our group is equally excited about the potential for magnetic processors and for high-speed magnetic RAM."

The findings are available online and due to appear in an upcoming issue of Physical Review Letters.

Rau and postdoctoral researcher Jian Li used a one-of-a-kind scanning ion microscope to first create and then measure ultra-thin circular disks of soft magnetic cobalt.
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Posted by Jay Roberts at 04:02 AM | Permalink

by Mary-Sue Haliburton
Pure Energy Systems News

Seeing the powerful earthquakes such as the December 26th, 2004 event that triggered the tsunami disaster, people are looking for possible causes for the apparent instability of earth's crust. "End-times" alarmists and backyard researchers believe that the predicted imminent reversal of the earth's magnetic field may be a significant clue to these eschatological-scale events.

Scientists have been observing changes in the direction of earth's magnetic field which took place recently as well as in the distant past. NASA’s website features a map showing the gradual northward migration of the north magnetic pole in the past century and a half. Since more than double the time interval has elapsed since the last reversal, compared to the time lapse between the previous two pole reversals, some believe we may be overdue for the next north-south flip. (1,2) However, though the interval between reversals of the Earth’s magnetic field can be as short as 5,000 years, it can also be as long as 50 million years. There does not seem to be any logic or rule governing the planet’s behavior.

It is not only the direction but also the strength of this magnetic field that is a concern. In the time of dinosaurs, at an estimated 2.5 gauss, it was eighty percent stronger than it is now. This may have been one of the reasons such gigantic life forms thrived. It is now accepted that a catastrophic event ended the reign of giant reptiles. However, they did not re-evolve to equivalent dimensions. And the disappearance of mammalian “mega-fauna” in more recent times is still considered to be a mystery. The mastodons and mammoths would have towered over modern elephants. Why are there so few large terrestrial animals today?

The smaller average size of modern animals may be due to the gradual decline of Earth's "steady state" (as opposed to “pulsed”) magnetism. Thousands of years ago the Chinese, with their astute discovery of bio-electrical energy flows known as “meridians”, learned that magnetism promotes vigor in biological life. They used magnetic rocks in medical treatment. In the past century there has been a further decline of earth's magnetic field by another five percent down to only 0.5 gauss. This has led Dr. Dean Bonlie to identify a "magnetic deficiency syndrome" resulting from the biological stress caused by the weakening of this "energy base" for life. (3)

The weakening of earth’s magnetism is one of the factors believed to be predictive of a pole reversal. That magnetic field reversals have occurred in the past is confirmed in the geological record. What is unclear is how precisely the transition occurs, and what happens to life forms extant at the time of this pole flip.

Does the magnetic field drop to zero gauss? Dire predictions follow upon the heels of this theory. Electronic devices would all be at risk: there may be damage to, or complete loss of, all near-earth-orbiting satellites and possibly the space station itself. Effects on life forms could range from migrating birds losing their sense of direction to immune system decline and even widespread die-off from radiation-induced cancers.

Losing its protective magnetic envelope, the atmosphere would expand and become thinner, possibly leading to altitude sickness near sea level. No longer filtered out, deadly cosmic rays would kill most if, not all, living creatures on the surface. Only those living in deep caves would be safe. This scenario has prompted some to build underground bunkers in hopes of surviving.

Countering this frightening vision, NASA predicts that, rather than declining to zero gauss, the magnetic field would become disordered. Thus we might for short time have more than one north and south pole on the planet. This official scientific stance says that the magnetosphere which shields us from cosmic radiation would not entirely disappear either. Thus, while communications would be erratic and perhaps at times completely inactivated, humans would find ways to survive. However, there are dissenters in the ranks, pointing to the vast South Atlantic magnetic anomaly and radiation damage to satellites over that region attributed to weakening of the protective magnetosphere. (4)

The disorderly-flip theory is supported by evidence from geology that in past reversals the decline was not total. Lava flows that solidified at Steen's Mountain during a lengthy reversal process show that the magnetic poles wandered across the equator three times. Though strength of the field was reduced to about 20% of maximum, there is no record that it fell to zero gauss during that transitional period. (5)

The theory that activity in the turbulent molten outer iron core of the planet generates its magnetic field currently dominates scientific thinking. Stormy activity deep in the earth's outer core, believed to be filled with roiling convection flows of molten iron, is understood to generate the planet’s magnetic field. Such violent seething could affect the mantle as well, possibly disturbing the earth's crust and causing the quakes.

However, there is an alternate theory of how the magnetic field is generated. In his article, "Origin of the Earth's Magnetic Field", Ernest McFarlane outlines gaps in the molten-iron convection theory. He proposes a system of electronic cells in a crystalline metal core with hot spots of heavy metals releasing alpha and beta particles. Due to the high heat the alpha particles are unable to combine with the free electrons. "Consequently an electron current flow is produced and conditions are set up for the generation of current loops throughout the inner and outer core. ... magnetic fields are produced as a consequence, in accordance with the right hand rule of electromagnetic theory." (5)
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Posted by Jay Roberts at 07:33 AM | Permalink

 The Earth's magnetic field is both expansive and complicated. It is generated by electric currents that are deep within the Earth and high above the surface. All of these currents contribute to the total geomagnetic field. In some ways, one can consider the Earth's magnetic field, measured at a particular instance and at a particular location, to be the superposition of symptoms of a myriad of physical processes occurring everywhere else in the world. The challenge is to untangle the rich information content of the magnetic field so that we can better understand our planet and the surrounding space environment in which it resides. Obviously, it would be a daunting task to try to summarize every single aspect of the subject of geomagnetism. Indeed, the necessity for brevity here means that our exposition will omit some relatively enormous details. Therefore, in this review for our website, we choose to concentrate on the specific phenomena that can be monitored............   Read full story

Posted by Jay Roberts at 07:23 AM | Permalink

The satellite perspective map seen here depicts the magnetic declination (degrees east). The dots represent the locations of USGS magnetic observatories. The stackplot of data depicted behind the globe is of the horizontal component of the magnetic field recorded at those observatories during the magnetic storm of 29-31 October 2003... Click here to see map  http://geomag.usgs.gov/index.php

Posted by Jay Roberts at 07:21 AM | Permalink

When an electric current passes through a metal wire, a magnetic field forms around that wire (see diagram at right). Likewise, a wire passing through a magnetic field creates an electric current within the wire. This is the basic principle that allows electric motors and generators to operate.

In the Earth (see image below right), the liquid metal that makes up the outer core passes through a magnetic field, which causes an electric current to flow within the liquid metal. The electric current, in turn, creates its own magnetic field—one that is stronger than the field that created it in the first place. As liquid metal passes through the stronger field, more current flows, which increases the field still further. This self-sustaining loop is known as the geomagnetic dynamo.

Energy is needed to keep the dynamo running. This energy comes from the release of heat from the surface of the solid inner core. Although it may seem counterintuitive, material from the liquid outer core slowly "freezes" onto the inner core, releasing heat as it does so. (High pressures within the Earth cause material to freeze at high temperatures.) This heat drives convection cells within the liquid core, which keeps the liquid metal moving through the magnetic field.

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Posted by Jay Roberts at 07:17 AM | Permalink


   If all the compasses in the world started pointing south rather than north, many people might think something very strange, very unusual, and possibly very dangerous was going on. Doomsayers would have a field day proclaiming the end is nigh, while more rational persons might head straight to scientists for an explanation.

Fortunately, those scientists in the know—paleomagnetists, to be exact—would have a ready answer. Such reversals in the Earth's magnetic field, they'd tell you, are, roughly speaking, as common as ice ages. That is, they're terrifically infrequent by human standards, but in geologic terms they happen all the time. As the time line at right shows, hundreds of times in our planet's history the polarity of the magnetic shield ensheathing the globe has gone from "normal," our current orientation to the north, to "reversed," and back again.

The Earth is not alone in this fickleness: The sun's magnetic shield appears to reverse its polarity approximately every 11 years. Even our Milky Way galaxy is magnetized, and experts say it probably reverses its polarity as well. Moreover, while a severe weakening or disappearance of the magnetic field would lay us open to harmful radiation from the sun, there's little evidence to date that "flips" per se inflict any lasting damage (see Impact on Animals).

It might sound as if scientists have all the answers regarding magnetic reversals. But actually they know very little about them. Basic questions haunt researchers: What physical processes within the Earth trigger reversals? Why do the durations and frequencies of both normal and reversed states seem random? Why is there such a disproportionately long normal period between about 121 and 83 million years ago? Why does the reversal rate, at least during the past 160 million years, appear to peak around 12 million years ago?

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Posted by Jay Roberts at 07:14 AM | Permalink

Late on a January night in 1993 I found myself on a beach on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, kneeling in the sand beside a leatherback sea turtle. Like a giant mango with wings, the huge black turtle had hauled herself up the beach in great stentorian gasps of air and was laying her eggs in a pit she had laboriously scooped out with her hind flippers.

Knowing basic facts about her ecology and physiology, I was in awe. How her kind, the largest living reptiles, had been around for 120 million years. How she lived solely on jellyfish, a thing more water balloon than animal. How she could collapse her lungs and dive to depths that would cause you or me to implode. How she had traveled thousands of miles around the Pacific Ocean, only to return there to the very beach she was born on years before.

That navigational and homing ability astonished me more than any other. How did she navigate around a trackless wilderness larger than the world's total land area and find her way back to that same short ribbon of sand? One hypothesis was just starting to be floated in those days: that to aid their long-distance migrations leatherbacks and other sea turtles appear to use the Earth's magnetic field (see Figure 1).

When I learned recently that our planet's magnetic shield is rapidly weakening and may be ready to reverse its polarity, causing compasses to point south, I immediately wondered what that would mean for leatherbacks and the many other species that use the magnetic field to orient themselves and find their way around. Could they withstand a significant dwindling of the field's strength or even a reversal? Or might extinctions, perhaps mass extinctions, be in the offing?


Animal magnetism

One of the first concrete signs that animals can tap into the magnetic field was observed, as in many a great discovery in science, by chance. It was the fall of 1957, and Hans Fromme, a researcher at the Frankfurt Zoological Institute in Germany, noticed that several European robins he kept in a cage were becoming restless and were fluttering up into the southwestern part of the cage. Nothing unusual there: it was known that migrating birds in cages become edgy at that time of year, and European robins in Germany migrate southwestwards to Spain to overwinter.

What made it striking was that the birds were in a shuttered room. They could see neither visual landmarks, nor their fellow, non-captive robins, nor the sun or stars, which were known to serve them as navigational aids. Clearly they were acting on something invisible, and Fromme deduced it must be the Earth's magnetic field.

Numerous experiments undertaken by him and others since then have shown that many living things avail themselves of the magnetic field. Organisms as diverse as hamsters, salamanders, sparrows, rainbow trout, spiny lobsters, and bacteria all do it. "I would go so far as to say that it's nearly ubiquitous," says John Phillips, a behavioral biologist at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University who himself has detected this ability in everything from fruit flies to frogs. (There's no scientific evidence that humans have this "sixth sense," though curiously, our brains do contain magnetite, the mineral thought to aid other animals' brains in detecting the field.)

How do we know organisms have this ability? A standard method to test for it is to throw a magnetic curve ball, as it were, at experimental subjects. In an effort, for example, to determine if the blind mole rat, a subterranean rodent that builds a home of branching tunnels with no exits to the surface, can sense the magnetic field, Tali Kimchi and Joseph Terkel of Tel Aviv University built an eight-armed maze within a device in which they could alter the magnetic field. They then tested two groups of rats—one in the Earth's magnetic field and the other in a field shifted by 180°—to see whether they had directional druthers for siting their sleeping nests and food chambers. The first group showed a significant preference to build their beds and pantries in the southern part of the maze, while the second group opted for the northern sector.

So they can sense it, but can they use it like we do a compass, to orient themselves? In another experiment, Kimchi and Terkel trained 24 blind mole rats to reach a goal box at the end of a complex labyrinth. Then, when all had mastered the task, they had half the rats do it again under the natural field and half under a reversed field. Lo and behold, the latter rats' performance fell far short of that achieved by their magnetically unmanipulated fellows.


Undersea superhighways

Other animals take things a step further than the blind mole rat, using the magnetic field like we do the Global Positioning System, to determine their location on the surface of the Earth and using that to negotiate unseen pathways during migration.

Kenneth and Catherine Lohmann of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and their team have shown through many experiments that during their 8,000-mile migration around the Atlantic Ocean, young loggerhead sea turtles can detect not only the field's intensity but its inclination, the angle at which magnetic field lines intersect the Earth. The turtles use these two pieces of information, which vary at every point on the planet's surface, as navigational markers that help them advance along their migratory route (see Figure 2).

Sometimes this navigational ability can serve its practitioners only too well. A mystery long bedeviling marine biologists is why otherwise healthy whales beach themselves, often in large groups. In the early 1980s, a British biologist named Margaret Klinowska first noticed a correlation between where whale strandings tended to occur along the coasts of England and where magnetic lineations written into the seafloor intersect those coasts. (These lineations, or anomalies, are different from those produced by the main magnetic field.) Joe Kirschvink of the California Institute of Technology and his colleagues later showed a similar association on the east coast of the U.S.

Whales, it seems, follow these magnetic lineations during migration (see Figure 3). "If that's your game plan, and you get off track, and you follow a sharp magnetic anomaly that curves and runs into the coast, bang, you end up on the beach," says Kirschvink. Because whales are very social, if the leader makes this mistake, so does its entire pod, hence the mass strandings.


Rising to the occasion

If whales can run into trouble when the field is reasonably strong, what might happen to them and other creatures that rely on it if the field becomes feeble or even flips? Hans Fromme had found in Frankfurt that when he placed his European robins into a steel chamber and reduced the strength of the ambient magnetic field by a third, the birds' flutterings were no longer directional. This suggested that the birds needed the magnetic field to be a certain intensity to be of use. But Fromme's.................

  Read full story

Posted by Jay Roberts at 07:10 AM | Permalink

History of Magnetism and Electricity

 

600 BC - Lodestone

 

The magnetic properties of natural ferric ferrite (Fe3O4) stones (lodestones) were described by Greek philosophers.

 

600 BC - Electric Charge

 

Amber is a yellowish, translucent mineral. As early as 600 BC the Greek philosopher, Aristophanes was aware of its peculiar property: when rubbed with a piece of fur, amber develops the ability to attract small pieces of material such as feathers. For centuries this strange, inexplicable property was thought to be unique to amber. This strange effect remained a mystery for over 2000 years, until, around AD 1600, Dr William Gilbert investigated the reactions of amber and magnets and first recorded the word 'Electric' in a report on the theory of magnetism.

 

Later in, in 1895, H.A. Lorentz developed the Electron Theory. We now know that there are three ways to generate electricity: Static, Electrochemical and Electromagnetic Induction.

 

1175 - First Reference to a Compass

 

Alexander Neckem an English monk of St. Albans describes the workings of a compass.

 

1269 - First Detailed Description of a Compass

 

Petrus Peregrinus de Marincourt, a French Crusader, describes a floating compass and a compass with a pivot point.

 

1600 - Static Electricity (De Magnete)

 

 In the 16th century, William Gilbert(1544-1603), the Court Physician to Queen Elizabeth I, proved that many other substances are electric (from the Greek word for amber, elektron) and that they have two electrical effects. When rubbed with fur, amber acquires resinous electricity; glass, however, when rubbed with silk, acquires vitreous electricity. Electricity repels the same kind and attracts the opposite kind of electricity. Scientists thought that the friction actually created the electricity (their word for charge). They did not realize that an equal amount of opposite electricity remained on the fur or silk. Dr. William Gilbert, realized that a force was created, when a piece of amber (resin) was rubbed with wool and attracted light objects. In describing this property today, we say that the amber is "electrified" or possesses and "electric charge". These terms are derived from the Greek word "electron" meaning amber and from this, the term "electricity" was developed. It was not until the end of the 19th century that this "something" was found to consist of negative electricity, known today as electrons.

 

Gilbert also studied magnetism and in 1600 wrote "De magnete" which gave the first rational explanation to the mysterious ability of the compass needle to point north-south: the Earth itself was magnetic. "De Magnete" opened the era of modern physics and astronomy and started a century marked by the great achievements of Galileo, Kepler, Newton and others.

 

Gilbert recorded three ways to magnetize a steel needle: by touch with a loadstone; by cold drawing in a North-South direction; and by exposure for a long time to the Earth's magnetic field while in a North-South orientation.

 

1660 - Static Electricity Generator

 

Otto von Guericke invents a crude machine for producing static electricity.

 

1729 - Conductors and Nonconductors

 

Stephen Gray describes that power possessed by one electrified body could be passed to another by connecting them.

 

1734 - Electrical Attraction and Repulsion

 

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Posted by Jay Roberts at 05:51 PM | Permalink

We have all ridden the monorail at Disneyland or the high speed magnetic levitation trains in Japan, right? Well truth be told many of us have not and even for those of us that have experienced these exhilarating modes of transportation not much knowledge as to the “How” and “why” of it all is really understood. Read on and increase your “magnetic” knowledge base….

A high-speed rail technology by which a train can travel free of friction at speeds of 480 kilometers (300 miles) per hour or more. The train is suspended on a magnetic cushion about half an inch above an elevated magnetic track, whose moving magnetic field alternately attracts and repels magnets mounted on the train, which is pushed and pulled along by this process.

A method of supporting and transporting objects or vehicles which is based on the physical property that the force between two magnetized bodies is inversely proportional to their distance. By using this magnetic force to counterbalance the gravitational pull, a stable and contactless suspension between a magnet (magnetic body) and a fixed guideway (magnetized body) may be obtained. In magnetic levitation (maglev), also known as magnetic suspension, this basic principle is used to suspend (or levitate) vehicles weighing 40 tons or more by generating a controlled magnetic force. By removing friction, these vehicles can travel at speeds higher than wheeled trains, with

More.....

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Posted by Jay Roberts at 08:44 PM | Permalink

With so many questions and so little time to absorb the magnitude of data available on magnets fromn so many diffferent sources we endeavor to present a one stop shop so to speak when ever you want to "feed you head" with more magnetic information

 

Get a Straight Answer

 

Listed below are questions submitted by e-mail to the author of "The Great Magnet, the Earth." Some of them (marked ***) came in response to an earlier site "The Exploration of the Earth's Magnetosphere" and are also found there in the question-and-answer section. Only some of the questions that arrive are listed, either because they keep coming up again and again--on the reversal of the Earth's magnetic field, for instance--or because the answers add extra details, which might interest other users.

 

Index of Questions arranged by Subject

 

Items covered:

 

  1. What is "Magnetic Flux" and what are "Flux Lines"?

     

  2. Is the surface of the Earth expanding?

     

  3. Will a Compass work inside a Car?

     

  4. Pole shifts? What Pole Shifts?

     

  5. What was it that Ned Benton did?

     

  6. Reversals of the Earth's field (4 queries)

     

  7. Can Magnetism propel Spaceships?

     

  8. Reversal of the Sun's Magnetic Poles

     

  9. Measuring Earth's magnetic field

     

  10. The strength of the Earth's mgnetic field

     

  11. Magnetic Shielding

     

  12. Building an electromagnet

     

  13. How do Magnetic Reversals affect Animal Migrations?

     

  14. Which is the "True" North Magnetic Pole?

     

  15. Magnetic intensity at Singapore

     

  16. Inner Core Rotation

     

  17. How does the Earth's field vary with location?

     

  18. Effect of magnetism on water

     

  19. "Why does this happen?" (electromagnetic induction)

     

  20. What would a Compass on the Moon point to?

     

  21. Why do iron filings outline magnetic field lines?

     

  22. Is Earth held in its orbit by magnetic forces?

     

  23. All magnetism due to different arrangements of magnetic poles?

     

  24. Magnetism to replace gravity in a space station?

     

  25. Magnetic reversal due soon? And are volcanoes a factor?

     

  26. Can magnetic reversals affect the human mind?

     

  27. When and where can I see "Northern Lights"?

     

  28. Magnetic reversals due to comet impact?

     

  29. Space Radiation and our weakening magnetic field

     

  30. Can the Sun trigger magnetic reversals?

     

  31. What is the smallest magnet?

     

  32. Isn't the Sun too hot to be magnetic?

     

  33. "Artificial magnetic shields" for astronauts?

     

  34. The movie "The Core"

     

  35. Can we tell if a symmetric magnetic field rotates around its axis?

     

  36. What causes permanent magnetism?

     

  37. What types of metal are attracted to magnets?

     

  38. "If the earth is a giant magnet, why doesn't all iron stick to it?"

     

  39. Risks from stormy "Space Weather"

     

  40. Does our magnetic field stop the atmosphere from getting blown away?

     

  41. Dynamos triggered by the sun?

     

  42. Could generated electricity affect Earth's magnetic field?

     

  43. "Magneto-therapy"

     

  44. Curie Point

     

  45. Blocking of magnetic fields

     

  46. Earth magnetism from rotating electric charges?

     

  47. Teacher seeks easy experiments

     

  48. Local field does not always decrease!

     

  49. Loss of magnetic energy from Earth

     

  50. Tesla's patents, and ball lightning

     

  51. Can electricity be generated from the Earth's magnetic field?

     

  52. Decay of magnetism in a magnet

     

  53. Magnetizing glass by a radio wave?

     

  54. Magnetization of materials

     

  55. Induction by non-fluctuating magnetic fields?

     

  56. Good "magnetic insulators"

     

  57. Creating magnetic pottery

     

  58. Shielding magnetic fields (2 messages)

     

  59. Conductivity and Transparency

     

  60. Heat sources inside the Earth

     

  61. Geomancy

     

  62. Are we approaching a polarity reversal?

     

  63. Magnetic Levitation

     

  64. Why does the magnetic field stop particles but not EM radiation?

     

  65. Earth's rotation and magnetism

     

  66. A career in geomagnetism?

     

  67. The movie "The Core"

     

  68. Telling the 6th grade about polarity reversals

     

  69. Magnetic Flux

     

  70. Why do moving electric charges create a magnetic field?

     

  71. Weakening of the Earth's Field (2 questions)

     

  72. Focusing magnetic fields

     

  73. Is gravity related to magnetism?

     

  74. Observing Magnetic Planets

     

  75. How does magnetism spin aluminum disks in power meters?

     

  76. Magnetic Poles in Druid times?

     

  77. Magnetism linked to Global Warming?

     

  78. Uses of Magnetic Energy

     

  79. Can sparks generate magnetic fields

     

  80. Can a magnetometer detect cracks in an oil well?

 

http://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/earthmag/magnQ&A1.htm

 

Posted by Jay Roberts at 06:46 AM | Permalink

With so much information available and so little time to sort it all out here is yet another resource regarding rare earth magnets we have found interesting and worth posting on our blog … What do you think? Let us know please

Table of Contents

 

  1. Does anyone think that static electric or magnetic fields cause cancer or any other human health problems?

     

  2. When evaluating whether there might be a connection between cancer and static electric or magnetic fields, can all electromagnetic fields be considered the same?

     

  3. When evaluating whether there might be a connection between cancer and static electric or magnetic fields, do we have to consider electromagnetic radiation as well as electromagnetic fields?

     

  4. When evaluating whether there might be a connection between cancer and static electric or magnetic fields, do we have to consider the electric as well as the magnetic component of the field?

     

  5. What units are used to measure static magnetic fields?

     

  6. What sort of static magnetic fields are common in residences?

     

  7. What sort of static magnetic fields are common in workplaces?

     

  8. What is known about the relationship between occupational exposure to static magnetic fields and cancer?

     

  9. How do scientists determine whether an environmental agent, such as a static electric or magnetic field causes or contributes to the development of cancer?

     

  10. How does the epidemiological evidence relevant to a connection between static fields and cancer stand up to the Hill criteria?

     

  11. How could laboratory studies be used to help evaluate the possible relationship between static magnetic fields and cancer?

     

  12. Are static magnetic fields genotoxic?

     

  13. Do static magnetic fields enhance the effects of other genotoxic agents?

     

  14. Do laboratory studies indicate that static magnetic fields have any biological effects that might be relevant to cancer or other human health hazards?

     

  15. Do static magnetic fields show any reproducible biological effects in laboratory studies?

     

  16. Do static magnetic fields of the intensity encountered in occupational settings show reproducible biological effects?

     

  17. Are there known mechanisms that would explain how static magnetic fields of the intensity encountered in occupational settings could cause biological effects in humans?

     

  18. How does the sum of the laboratory and epidemiological evidence relevant to a connection between static magnetic fields and cancer stand up to the Hill criteria?

     

  19. Have any independent bodies reviewed the research on static electric and magnetic fields and possible human health effects?

     

  20. Do exposure standards for static electric and magnetic fields exist?

     

  21. What is the basis for the safety standards set by Lawrence Livermore, WHO, ACGIH, NRPB, and ICNIRP?

     

  22. Do static fields affect cardiac pacemakers?

     

  23. Do static fields decrease fertility, cause birth defects or increase miscarriage rates?

     

  24. Annotated bibliography

 

http://www.rareearth.org/magnets_health.htm

Posted by Jay Roberts at 06:29 AM | Permalink

Gauss? What is it, who is it named after? Where and when did gauss obtain this “identity?” Let’s take a walk back in time and look at the who, where and when of magnets and Gauss…

  Public interest in science owes a great deal to Alexander Von Humboldt (1769--1859). As a young man Alexander explored the jungles of South America, but much of his life was spent in Paris, where he tirelessly drew the public's attention to the achievements of the natural sciences. Late in life he assembled his scientific knowledge into a monumental set of volumes titled " Kosmos."

  Carl Friedrich Gauss

   In a 1828 meeting Humboldt suggested to the greatest German mathematician of his time, Carl Friedrich Gauss, that he ought to apply his talents to the mysteries of magnetism. Gauss and his associate Weber then built a laboratory to study magnetism, in which, among other things, they devised the world's first magnetic telegraph.

   Up to that time, the compass needle--and the downward-pointing "dip needle" on a horizontal axis--measured well the direction of the magnetic force, but what about measuring its strength? Gauss devised a clever method

 

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Posted by Jay Roberts at 05:54 AM | Permalink

When it comes right down to it the fact that almost every planet we know of exhibits a degree of magnetism shows the significance of magnets not only here but in fact as part of the "fabric of our universe".


 

It is not as if in our everyday lives we walk around and think about the relationship between magnetism and the planets. In fact almost all planets that we know of in our solar system have or have had a magnetic component similar to earth’s magnetic field. One planet does not have a magnetic component but why? Read on and expand your “internal universe”…..

Until the middle of the 20th century the Earth's magnetism seemed to be a happy accident of nature. Too many factors had to fit just right--the fluid core of the Earth, its electrical conductivity and its motions, all had to satisfy the strict requirements of dynamo theory. That was before other planets in the solar system were visited and examined. Now we know that among those planets, only Venus lacks any magnetism. The planets differ greatly in size and properties, and their fields differ too. Yet they all seem to have dynamo fields, or (in the case of Mars and the Moon) have had them in the past.


  Jupiter
(bigger version)
Jupiter
    In early 1955, two young radio-astronomers started working with a cross-shaped antenna array of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Terrestrial Magnetism (DTM). The array stood on the north shore of the Potomac River (upstream from Washington, DC and slightly south of White's Ferry; more here) and could select signals from a narrow range of directions. Ken Franklin and Bernie Burke calibrated it using a known source, the Crab Nebula, and then began surveying the surrounding sky.

 

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Posted by Jay Roberts at 04:41 AM | Permalink

Magnet

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Iron filings in a magnetic field generated by a bar magnet
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Iron filings in a magnetic field generated by a bar magnet

A magnet is an object that has a magnetic field. It can be in the form of a permanent magnet or an electromagnet. Permanent magnets do not rely upon outside influences to generate their field. They occur naturally in some rocks, but can also be manufactured. Electromagnets rely upon electric current to generate a magnetic field - when the current increases, so does the field.

Contents

[hide]
  • 1 Properties of magnets
  • 2 Physical origin of magnetism
  • 3 Characteristics of magnets
    • 3.1 Permanent magnets and dipoles
    • 3.2 North-south pole designation and the Earth's magnetic field
  • 4 Common uses for magnets and electromagnets
  • 5 Magnetization of materials
  • 6 Demagnetizing materials
  • 7 Types of permanent magnets
  • 8 Magnetic forces
    • 8.1 Magnets and ferromagnetic materials
    • 8.2 Magnets and diamagnetic materials
    • 8.3 Magnets and paramagnetic materials
    • 8.4 Calculating the magnetic force
      • 8.4.1 Force between two monopoles
      • 8.4.2 Force between two very close attracting surfaces
      • 8.4.3 Force between two bar magnets
  • 9 See also
  • 10 Online references
  • 11 Printed references
  • 12 External links
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Posted by Jay Roberts at 04:21 AM | Permalink

"I know of no scientist who takes this claim seriously...It's another fad. They come and go like copper bracelets and crystals and all of these things, and this one will pass too." --Robert Park of the American Physical Society.

"Iron atoms in a magnet are crammed together in a solid state about one atom apart from one another. In your blood only four iron atoms are allocated to each hemoglobin molecule, and they are separated by distances too great to form a magnet. This is easily tested by pricking your finger and placing a drop of your blood next to a magnet. " --Michael Shermer*

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Posted by Jay Roberts at 03:33 AM | Permalink

Anecdotal benefits have been reported by wearers but studies comparing these bracelets with 'dummy' versions have produced mixed results.

The current British Medical Journal study found a significant reduction in pain scores among 65 wearers.

The Peninsular Medical School team said the effect could be real or down to the individual's faith in the treatment.

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Posted by Jay Roberts at 03:33 AM | Permalink

  Perhaps the greatest theoretical achievement of physics in the 19th century was the discovery of electromagnetic waves. The first hint was an unexpected connection between electric phenomena and the velocity of light.

 

    Electric forces in nature come in two kinds. First, there is the electric attraction or repulsion between (+) and (-) electric charges. It is possible to use this to define a unit of electric charge, as the charge which repels a similar charge at a distance of, say, 1 meter, with a force of unit strength (actual formulas make this precise).

 

    But second, there is

 

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Posted by Jay Roberts at 06:39 AM | Permalink

People not familiar with magnetism often view it as a somewhat mysterious property of specially treated iron or steel.
A magnetized bar has its power concentrated at two ends, its poles; they are known as its north (N) and south (S) poles, because if the bar is hung by its middle from a string, its N end tends to point northwards and its S end southwards. The N end will repel the N end of another magnet, S will repel S, but N and S attract each other. The region where this is observed is loosely called a magnetic field; a more specific look at the concept of "field" is provided in a later section.
Either pole can also attract iron objects such as pins and paper clips. That is because under the influence of a nearby magnet, each pin or paper clip becomes itself a temporary magnet, with its poles arranged in a way appropriate to magnetic attraction.
But this property of iron is a very special type
of magnetism, almost an accident of nature!

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Posted by Jay Roberts at 06:30 AM | Permalink

Tim Harlow, general practitioner1, Colin Greaves, research fellow2, Adrian White, senior research fellow3, Liz Brown, research assistant4, Anna Hart, statistician5, Edzard Ernst, professor of complementary medicine4

1 College Surgery, Cullompton, Devon EX15 1TG, 2 Peninsula Medical School (Primary Care), Exeter EX2 5DW, 3 Peninsula Medical School, Tamar Science Park, Plymouth PL6 8BX, 4 Peninsula Medical School (Complementary Medicine), Exeter EX2 4NT, 5 Lancashire School of Health and Postgraduate Medicine, University of Central Lancashire, Preston PR1 2HE

Correspondence to: T Harlow, Hospiscare, Dryden Road, Exeter EX2 5JJ timharlow@eclipse.co.uk

 

Abstract

Objective To determine the effectiveness of commercially available magnetic bracelets for pain control in osteoarthritis of the hip and knee.

Design Randomised, placebo controlled trial with three parallel groups.

Setting Five rural general practices.

Participants 194 men and women aged 45-80 years with osteoarthritis of the hip or knee.

Intervention Wearing a standard strength static bipolar magnetic bracelet, a weak magnetic bracelet, or a non-magnetic (dummy) bracelet for 12 weeks.

Main outcome measures Change in the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities osteoarthritis lower limb pain scale (WOMAC A) after 12 weeks, with the primary comparison between the standard and dummy groups. Secondary outcomes included changes in WOMAC B and C scales and a visual analogue scale for pain.

Results Mean pain scores were reduced more in the standard magnet group than in the dummy group (mean difference 1.3 points, 95% confidence interval 0.05 to 2.55). Self reported blinding status did not affect the results. The scores for secondary outcome measures were consistent with the WOMAC A scores.

 

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Posted by Jay Roberts at 01:15 AM | Permalink

When this big ole ball we call the earth turns out to be one BIG magnet it is no wonder people study it in AWE. Who knew magnets and those who love to study and experiment with them have been given the Nobel Prize ..... More than once!!  

Take a look....

http://education.magnet.fsu.edu/curriculum/maglab_alpha/maglabalpha/html/library/nobel.html

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Posted by Jay Roberts at 04:02 AM | Permalink

What are magnets?

Magnets can be made by placing a magnetic material such as iron or steel, in a strong magnetic field. Permanent, temporary and electromagnets can be made in this manner.

Background information for Magnets

Can we help you? Below you will find some commonly asked questions about magnets and magnetism. You may also want to explore the other topics relating to «An Invisible Attraction»

What are some uses of magnets?

 

The atoms forming materials that can be easily magnetized such as iron, steel, nickel, and cobalt are arranged in small units, called domains. Each domain, although microscopic in size, contains millions of billions of atoms and each domain acts like a small magnet. If a magnetic material is placed in a strong magnetic field, the individual domains, which normally point in all directions, gradually swing around into the direction of the field. They also take over neighboring domains. When most of the domains are aligned in the field, the material becomes a magnet.
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Posted by Jay Roberts at 03:06 AM | Permalink

Almost 20 years have elapsed since we (Nakagawa, K., et al.) began research on "Magnetism and Living Bodies". Judging from the results of our research and those of other groups during this period, as well as from extensive referential data available both in Japan and abroad, I have come to the belief that we assume the presence of what we call "The Magnetic Field Deficiency Syndrome" in human bodies. Hereinafter 'Magnetism' or 'Magnetic field' will imply a stationary state. ... Read Full article

http://www.geocities.com/futurehint/biomagnetic.html

 

 

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Posted by Jay Roberts at 05:19 AM | Permalink

In ancient times, after the discovery of the magnetic properties of certain materials, sailors used to use stones like magnetite to navigate in the same way that we use compasses.  And like us, early explorers originally assumed that the direction that their compasses would point--the direction of magnetic north--would always be the same.   Their unexpected destinations would occasionally challenge that assumption.   By the 17th century, some observers had begun to record changes in the direction of the Earth's magnetic field, changes which Alexander von Humboldt later called magnetic storms because the changes sometimes occurred during lightening storms.  If strong enough, these geomagnetic storms--strong disturbances in the Earth's magnetic field--can even disrupt electronic communication and cause blackouts.  The Earth's magnetic field is not constant!

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Posted by Jay Roberts at 06:03 AM | Permalink

Scientists have identified the most powerful magnetic object known in the Universe, the result of the first direct measurement of a magnetic field around a peculiar neutron star first observed nearly 25 years ago

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Posted by Jay Roberts at 05:51 AM | Permalink

by David P. Stern

Commemorating the 400th anniversary of  "De Magnete"

 

    In 1600, four hundred years ago William Gilbert, later physician to Queen Elizabeth I of England, published his great study of magnetism, "De Magnete"--"On the Magnet". It gave the first rational explanation to the mysterious ability of the compass needle to point north-south: the Earth itself was magnetic. "De Magnete" opened the era of modern physics and astronomy and started a century marked by the great achievements of Galileo, Kepler, Newton and others.

    If you lived in London in 1600, you could have purchased "De Magnete" for seven shillings and sixpence. To read it, of course, you would have to know Latin, the language of science in 1600. You might have had the rare privilege of attending first runs of Shakespeare's plays in the "Globe" theatre--sitting in the balcony if you could afford it, standing in front of the stage if not. However, you might have had to weigh this pleasure against the peril of bubonic plague, which usually spread in the city during summer months.

     

This web site tells the story of Gilbert and his book--with glimpses of London in 1600, and with studies of magnetism before Gilbert. It then recounts the later history of the Earth's magnetism, including...
  • The remarkable discoveries of Halley, Coulomb, Oersted, Ampere and Gauss.
  • The unexpected connection between sunspot activity and the Earth's magnetism.
  • The deep-seated "'dynamo" believed to be responsible for the field.
  • The strange reversals of the Earth's magnetic polarity.
  • The role of magnetism in discovering the "drift" of continents.
  • The extension of magnetism to space around Earth, even to other planets.
One could hardly find a more striking story of grand adventure in science! For more in depth reading please follow this link http://www.phy6.org/earthmag/demagint.htm
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Posted by Jay Roberts at 05:34 AM | Permalink