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Earth's Core Made In Miniature
ananyo writes "A 3-meter-tall metal sphere full of molten sodium is about to start work modeling the Earth's core. The gigantic dynamo, which has taken researchers ten years to build, 'will generate a self-sustaining electromagnetic field that can be poked, prodded and coaxed for clues about Earth's dynamo, which is generated by the movement of liquid iron in the outer core.'"
Be cause none of the theories, Magneto Hydro Dynamics (MHD), the Vlasov Equation, etc... are correct. The equations are two complex to solve so they have to make approximations. You need experiment to understand what terms are important and what terms are wrong. Plus a lot of times theorists use rediculus scaling parameters such that these phenomena can never happen in nature.
In science nobody believes the theory except the theorist and everybody believes the experiment except the experimentalist.
And this distinction is noteworthy because you can measuring what happens in practice, find where it doesn't meet the theory, and revise your theory. This is how science gets done.
Calculations showed powered flight to be possible - why did Orville & Wilbur build the Flyer?
Why was the first atomic pile built? Why the first moon shot?
Because we can. Because theory is all well and good, but to actually have the thing in reality confirms (or disproves, usually dramatically) the theory.
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
A team of physicists has worked 10 years on this, writing hundreds of pages of papers to coerce funding out of federal institutes but you can spot the flaw in their plans after 30 seconds of thinking and writing an Internet comment?
Being able to answer that question, and not merely ask it, is why these people get to play with 3-metre balls of molten sodium for a living.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?