Scientists discover Magnetricity, Monopoles, and Spin Ice

[stealth]

All in one breakthrough not covered in the news.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091015085916.htm

 

[Renaissance Man]

So... excuse my lack of scientific literacy... but what does this discovery mean in terms of application?

 

[stealth]

Bah! Awesome science is it's own use!

So... excuse my lack of scientific literacy... but what does this discovery mean in terms of application?

I heard that charged objects orbit a monopole, so you could make a tokamak like torus of orbiting hydrogn ions (protons) and deuterium ions and fuse them into helium ions.

But somebody will probable just make a bomb out of the stuff.

P.S. "Spin Ice" on wiki was cool. I would use it to test the kimits of Lorentz' frame-dragging effect, by spinning the magnetic domains all the way up.

 

[stealth]

Here's an idea.

Get some spin ice, and store a huge magnetic charge in it. Since everthing else is a magnetricity insulator, you could hook a copper wire to it. Now swing it around - that would make an electric charge flow down the wire.

You could make an electronic inertial navigation system with that. Or a generator.

 

[aramis]

So... excuse my lack of scientific literacy... but what does this discovery mean in terms of application?

It's a major change in thinking about magnetism. It could lead to some interesting developments in motors, generators, and electronics.

 

[Ptah]

If verified this is Nobel prize stuff. It may lead to a better understanding of magnetic monopoles and thus experiments to create truly free (even if very short lived) monopoles, a better understanding of superconductivity, and materials for quantum computing applications.


Now from a sci-fi perspective, magnetic monopoles have a far stronger interaction with photons, the mediator of the EM force. In a sci-fi world forget about gravitation focusing of laser beams, gravity is such a weak force, instead you would have monopoles to do this job, likely created at the beam "aperture" as needed to provide focusing.

I can also imagine advanced particle weapons made up of a beam of monopoles, stabalized just enough to reach their target. The theory I recall postulates that monpoles are unstable and can spontaneoulsy flip "charge" to combine with other monopoles and get the dipoles we are used to. This recombination process releasing lots of energy as photons. So in my sci-fi speculation you could get a weapon that blasts the target like a particle gun, explodes, and releases an EMP.

 

[stealth]

Now from a sci-fi perspective, magnetic monopoles have a far stronger interaction with photons, the mediator of the EM force. In a sci-fi world forget about gravitation focusing of laser beams, gravity is such a weak force, instead you would have monopoles to do this job, likely created at the beam "aperture" as needed to provide focusing.

Google says photons have a spin of 1, gravitons have a spin of 2. Do you know if this means a monopole will polarize gravity like it will a photon?

Just asking.

 

[Ptah]

Google says photons have a spin of 1, gravitons have a spin of 2. Do you know if this means a monopole will polarize gravity like it will a photon?

Just asking.

I wouldn't think so. I'm not up on the actual graviton theories however.

 

[stealth]

I think I found it, Ptah.

I wouldn't think so. I'm not up on the actual graviton theories however.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/102614n77r801236/

This paper says that gravitons will spiral away from a monopole.

I can't find the whole thing, though. It *seems* legit, but old. Maybe you can help?