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Evidence of Magnetic Monopoles Found?

TheMatt writes "As reported on PhysicsWeb and published in Science (subscription required), researchers at AIST and co-workers believe they have found evidence of magnetic monopoles. They observed an anomalous Hall effect in a ferromagnetic crystal that they say can only be explained via magnetic monopoles. To refresh your memory, magnetic monopoles are the magnetic analogue of electrons and other charged particles--a "north" or "south" pole only. Dirac in 1931 showed that the existence of a magnetic monopole naturally leads to the quantization of electric and magnetic charge. Thus, showing the existence of just one magnetic monopole would be quite profound for physics, but their mass (> 10^16 GeV) has made searches for them difficult."

2 of 66 comments (clear)

  1. OK we need to discover... by bofkentucky · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Applied Relativity and we get Unified Field Theory
    Apologies to Sid

    --
    09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0
  2. ObSMAC by Repton · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    I maintain nonetheless that yin-yang dualism can be overcome.
    With sufficient enlightenment we can give substance to any
    distinction: mind without body, north without south, pleasure
    without pain. Remember, enlightenment is a function of willpower,
    not of physical strength.

    -- Chairman Sheng-ji Yang,
    "Essays on Mind and Matter"

    --
    Repton.
    They say that only an experienced wizard can do the tengu shuffle.