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Iraq Swears By Dowsing Rod Bomb Detector
jggimi writes "According to the New York Times, more than fifteen hundred remote sensing devices have been sold to Iraq's Ministry of the Interior, at prices ranging from $16,500 to $60,000 each. The devices are used for bomb and weapon detection at checkpoints, and have no battery or other power source. Sounds great, but according to a retired United States Air Force officer, Lt. Col. Hal Bidlack, they work on the same principle as a Ouija board — the power of suggestion. He described the wand as nothing more than an explosives divining rod. Even though the device has been debunked by the US Military, the US Department of Justice, and even Sandia National Laboratories, the Iraqis are thrilled with the devices. 'Whether it's magic or scientific, what I care about is it detects bombs,' said Maj. Gen. Jehad al-Jabiri, head of the Ministry of the Interior's General Directorate for Combating Explosives."
Oh god, bury the parent in down mods please.
There is simply no evidence - no reason to even suspect - that dowsing is real. Study after study shows random results. Nobody cares about your grandfather or how good a man he was.
The only ferrous part of us being pumped around is Hemoglobin. It's extremely weakly ferromagnetic, and you need MRI magnets to see changes in its magnetic field - it's called the fMRI. Even then we have to use very recent (as in, last 15 years) DSP technologies to sort out the noise.
Unless you have metal on you, you can't even feel the enormous magnetic field of an MRI. How are you going to feel water flowing 5 feet under ground? We have to inject contrast fluid to get a good image - does he keep a stockpile of contrast to enhance his results?
And yeah there's nuclear resonance (like how normal MRIs work) but those too are infinitesimal forces.