Posted on 10/15/2009 2:51:38 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
Scientists have generated a magnetic version of electricity, which they have called magnetricity.
The discovery marks an important advance in theoretical physics. The existence of magnetic “charges” has been predicted for nearly 70 years but has never been observed in practice.
The study was led by Professor Steve Bramwell, of the London Centre for Nanotechnology. He said: “It is not often in the field of physics you get the chance to ask, ‘How do you measure something?’, and then go on to prove a theory unequivocally. This is a very important step to establish that magnetic charge can flow like electric charge.”
While electrical current is carried by electrons, magnetricity is based on atomic-sized “north” and “south” charges that flow through materials when placed in a magnetic field.
The idea that the north and south poles of a magnet can exist independently was first proposed by Paul Dirac, a physicist, in 1931.
However, in everyday life poles always seem to occur in north-south pairs: no matter how many times you break a bar magnet in half, it will always have a north end and a south end.
Dredging through the fallout from collisions in particle accelerators and straining to pick up cosmic rays from the early universe also failed to turn up elementary particles that have just one pole.
Now research, published today in the journal Nature, shows that “north” and “south” charges can be isolated and rove around independently in a crystalline material called dysprosium titanate. The crystals possess two unusual magnetic properties stemming from the way the atoms are arranged.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
No danger that Maxwell’s Equations are going to become fully symmetric in E and B anytime soon. Certainly not as a result of this.
This is potentially very useful but suppression/disruption of half the dipole does not equal a monopole. Maxwell’s still got crazy genius mandate over this. :)
(Snarks, do you know aught of this story?)
Not this one, g_w. Plus it makes me a bit uncomfortable, all of this talk about monopoles and north poles and south poles and the like...
I can’t remember now, and you can save me a trip to the office if you do, but wasn’t Dirac’s conjecture an exercise in Jackson’s book? [We certainly did it as an assignment in first year Classical Electrodynamics, either way.]
Self taught here, specifying sources is pretty much a no go with me. I try to read multiple angles, the stranger ones make great late night reading, and focus on what works. I haven’t published anything...yet.
Many nonsensical conjectures fall out when pure math is applied. No arrow of time probably being the most prominent one.
The Second Edition had a cover that was Blood Red. There is a story -- possibly apocryphal -- that Jackson once answered a question at a seminar by saying that the choice of color had been no accident.
Clicked your link and that whole ‘time-independent’ pops up again.
Oddly written article.
Shows how poorly “almost all” science is written up nowdays.
What if we need to join the “we don’t believe in the string theory theoretical ping list”?
Hey, if you’re expecting me to start one more ping list, forget it. ;’)
Bump
thanks, bfl
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