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Amherst Researchers Create Magnetic Monopoles

Posted by timothy on from the can-we-call-them-dirac's-revenge? dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Nearly 85 years after pioneering theoretical physicist Paul Dirac predicted the possibility of their existence, an international collaboration led by Amherst College Physics Professor David S. Hall '91 and Aalto University (Finland) Academy Research Fellow Mikko Möttönen has created, identified and photographed synthetic magnetic monopoles in Hall's laboratory on the Amherst campus. The groundbreaking accomplishment paves the way for the detection of the particles in nature, which would be a revolutionary development comparable to the discovery of the electron." That's quite a step beyond detecting monopoles; the Nature abstract is online, but the full paper is paywalled.

12 of 156 comments (clear)

  1. Plus, they're worth 25 RU by nightfire-unique · · Score: 5, Funny

    .. and can certainly help in the fight against the Ur-Quan!

    --
    A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
  2. Monopole Magnets by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    "The secrets of magnetism"

    Requires Superstring Theory, Silksteel Alloys

    Leads to Nanominiaturization, Unified Field Theory
    Enables: Terraform Mag Tube

    1. Re:Monopole Magnets by Mordok-DestroyerOfWo · · Score: 4, Funny

      And yet our tanks can still be beaten by archers.

      --
      "Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
    2. Re:Monopole Magnets by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      No one knew electricity was going to lead to iPhones.

      Probably just as well. If they had, we might never have had all the good things that electricity has brought us.

  3. Are we sure. . . by smooth+wombat · · Score: 4, Funny

    someone wasn't playing a trick on them and was turning the electric can opener on and off in the other room?

    --
    We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
    1. Re:Are we sure. . . by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 3, Funny

      Hold the phone

      I can't. I has no thumbs.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  4. Re:Verry cool IF TRUE by tomhath · · Score: 5, Funny
    FTFA:

    Hall's team adopted an innovative approach to investigating Dirac's theory, creating and identifying synthetic magnetic monopoles in an artificial magnetic field generated by a Bose-Einstein condensate, an extremely cold atomic gas tens of billionths of a degree warmer than absolute zero.

    "Verry cool" is an understatement.

  5. Monopole Money by retroworks · · Score: 2, Funny

    You could run an electric utility, four railroads, and get out of jail free if this can be produced to scale.

    --
    Gently reply
  6. Next: aguuti nodules by Culture20 · · Score: 1, Funny

    Magnetic monopoles, how do they work? My guess is the other pole is directed through higher spacial dimensions.

  7. Re:Contradicts current theory? by Kongming · · Score: 4, Funny

    Also, would this allow for the development of an over unity, energy from nothing generation machine.

    The answer to that question is always, always no. Except when it's still no, in which case it is no. No.

    In conclusion, no.

    --
    (no sig)
  8. Glad they're back in stock... by PseudoCoder · · Score: 3, Funny

    My previous supplier has left me high and dry and I can't finish my perpetual motion machine without one of these. Can I get a discount on more than one? Or do I have to buy them one by one to avoid them neutralizing each other?

    --
    "Now, I doubt any of you would prefer a rolled up newspaper as a weapon against a dictator or a criminal intruder."
  9. Re:Contradicts current theory? by meta-monkey · · Score: 5, Funny

    So you're saying there's a chance...?

    --
    We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.