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Record-Setting 100+ T Magnetic Field Achieved At Los Alamos
New submitter schrodingersGato writes "Researchers at the Los Alamos campus of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory achieved a record-setting 100.75 Tesla magnetic field. To do this, scientists placed a resistive magnet (a sophisticated electromagnet) coupled to massive bank of capacitors within another magnet fixed at a 'lower' magnetic field. A short-lived pulse two million times stronger than the Earth's magnetic field was generated. The magnet itself made an eerie sound as it was energized (video). Prepare for the birth of Magneto!"
The earths magnetic field is not strong, it's just huge. You're probably more burdned by power and weight and size contraints if you want to shield a shuttle than field strenght.
What I find interesting with this is that some "magic physics" theories postulates funny things to be possible at some ~50 tesla strenght. Probably won't show up anything, but testing them to falsify is always a noble goal.
There ain't no SI unit named after Edison. beeeotch!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
It's great that you can quote a few numbers you recall being important and draw inferences from them, but please leave the science to people who didn't just read the summary of an article, and go "hey that number I just read is bigger than another one I remember reading about somewhere else, so I'm close to discovering a solution!"
This is like if you find out that if you place a 50lb bag on a 100 foot lever, you can generate 5000ft-lb of torque, and holy crap how far away are we from sandbag-lever arm car engines!?
First off:
This is a transient field generated by an electric current that was created through the discharge of capacitor banks. The banks themselves probably took a few minutes to charge up, at a power draw unsustainable for any space vehicle, and discharged a "short lived" pulse, which from the video, was order of seconds. Regardless, the point of mentioning "short-lived" is obviously that this cannot run in steady state, which wouldn't do much for protection.
Second (and you and whoever modded you up have probably heard of this exciting term too):
The physics behind an EMP (electromagnetic pulse) is exactly what this magnet would create: a large magnetic flux change through closed conducting circuits. That means that if you can't generate this type of magnetic field in steady state (remember the words "short-lived"?), you'd end up frying more components than whatever charged particles you want to protect against.
Third:
Does anyone know how standard magnetic fields are generated, or at least bother to take a look at the pretty pictures in the article? The 100T that was quoted was undoubtedly in the center of the giant metal solenoid (new buzzword for the pseudoscientists out there!). To "protect" a space vehicle from more science words using this specific methodology basically means building a giant metal sewer pipe around every space shuttle to begin with. The technology required to be useful in stellar flight requires small modular field generators that can create magnetic fields external to itself (and anything it wants to protect), not internal (where once again dFlux/dt would fry your circuits).
Finally:
"Non-EM ionizing radiation" is a cute and exciting phrase, but really that just means other "ions". And yes, if a magnetic field can stop a proton (a hydrogen ion) from that "non-EM" solar wind, it'll stop other forms of ions as well, as they all follow the same physics of being a massive (i.e. having mass) charged particle.
+3 interesting?? What the fuck, mods.
+ 5 Informative, -6 for being a snarky asshole.
FYI: your reply would have been more interesting without the snobbery and generally superior attitude. You may be technically correct, but you sound like an ass.
You're damn right 100T is incredibly powerful. Most MRI rings for humans max out at 3T. Some of the experimental medical rings are 7T-8T and you have to be really careful working around those. I can't imagine 100T. Hell, we stuck a dumpster to a brick wall with a 5T magnet.
This is a transient field generated by an electric current that was created through the discharge of capacitor banks.
If you're going to pour on the snark, you could at least read enough of the article to understand that, while a capacitor bank is used in establishing the magnetic field, the primary energy storage was from a motor-generator that stores 1.2 GJ of energy for the experiments. So, while I agree that it's frustrating to hear half baked ideas for applications of exciting new science to pet science fiction dreams, doing so in a confrontational manner does little to actually enhance the knowledge of the folks making those sorts of suggestions.
Does anyone know how standard magnetic fields are generated, or at least bother to take a look at the pretty pictures in the article? The 100T that was quoted was undoubtedly in the center of the giant metal solenoid (new buzzword for the pseudoscientists out there!). To "protect" a space vehicle from more science words using this specific methodology basically means building a giant metal sewer pipe around every space shuttle to begin with.
This in itself shows a clear lack of understanding of how magnetic fields work. Magnetic fields are closed loops: what that means is, if there is a 100T flux through the middle of the magnet, there will also be an intense magnetic field curving back around the outside of the magnet (this is middle-school physics here). So if you ran the magnet through the center of the ship (and had sufficient power to leave it on, or hell a permanent magnet would also work), it would create a magnetic field that would extend around the entirety of the ship, which would deflect and charged particles stream that got near the ship (except at the ends, where like the Earth's north pole, the field would be parallel to incoming particles and wouldn't be deflected). Indeed, that design would be exactly identical to the Earth's magnetic field.
Also, the EMP effect would be non-existent if you could keep the magnet charged (assuming you built up slowly), so that point is... well, not relevant to the posters question (he didn't say this design would work, only asked how strong the field would need to be in general). And your third point is just being snarky. He asked an interesting hypothetical question, and you answered snarkily and, ironically, in a way that revealed your own ignorance.
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