Record-breaking magnet crams three tons of force into the size of a golf ball

[Dietrichw]

Source

 

 

University of Cambridge scientists have broken a decade-old superconducting record by packing a 17.6 Tesla magnetic field into a golf ball-sized hunk of crystal -- equivalent to about three tons of force. 

 

The team used high-temperature superconductors that work at minus 320 degrees F or so -- not exactly balmy, but less frigid than the minus 460 degrees F needed for regular superconductors. With zero resistance, superconducting materials can carry up to 100 times more current than copper wires, but the resulting magnetic fields create huge internal forces. Since the cuprate materials used for the record are as fragile as dried pasta, they can actually explode under the strain. To get around it, the team modified the material's microstructure and "shrink-wrapped" it in stainless steel. That produced the largest magnetic field ever trapped in a standalone material at any temperature, according to the team. The research might eventually lead to more secure and efficient power transmission, better scanners and yes, levitating monorails.

[Sharif]

i wish i have one of those 

[ZetZet]

Pretty cool. Not very useful.

[fishy]

Pretty cool. Not very useful.

 

yet!

[Heisenbleurgh]

Hoverboards, here we come!

[atomicmonkey101]

Pretty cool. Not very useful.

 

 I could think of a few....

[Tech_Dreamer]

Cool... B)

[Buckley]

Shit...

[flibberdipper]

Holy shit... Wouldn't want my finger to be between that and a piece of iron... Or hand... Or arm... Or any part of my body...

[Epis]

A magnet of that strength must be pretty dangerous if handled incorrectly.

[PillowSmoke]

lol trying to pry open these twwo magnets.

[carolkarine]

I think this might be strong enough to start pulling the iron out of your blood

 

not sure on that though.

[ShiverMePenguins]

I think this might be strong enough to start pulling the iron out of your blood

 

not sure on that though.

If you diet like an american yes, but you'd die from iron poisoning first anyway

[carolkarine]

If you diet like an american yes, but you'd die from iron poisoning first anyway

The quantity of iron doesn't matter, as it's not one solidified mass.

[ShiverMePenguins]

Actually you'd find it does, as dilution plays an important aspect in magnetic force/electrical force.

[Darkstar101]

Cool stuff.

[Syntaxvgm]

A magnet of that strength must be pretty dangerous if handled incorrectly.

You profile pic fits this thread

"Neat!"

[Syntaxvgm]

Holy shit... Wouldn't want my finger to be between that and a piece of iron... Or hand... Or arm... Or any part of my body...

Trouser Snake 

[Fetzie]

I think this might be strong enough to start pulling the iron out of your blood

 

not sure on that though.

 

 

If you diet like an american yes, but you'd die from iron poisoning first anyway

 

 

Actually you'd find it does, as dilution plays an important aspect in magnetic force/electrical force.

 

 

The quantity of iron doesn't matter, as it's not one solidified mass.

 

 

The iron in your blood exists as the Iron ion in the hemoglobin complex molecule, not as the elemental metal. It is therefore unable to be magnetized, and would be unaffected by even the strongest magnet. If you had elemental iron flowing around your bloodstream you would have an aneurysm in multiple organs and die.

[LukaP]

The iron in your blood exists as the Iron ion in the hemoglobin complex molecule, not as the elemental metal. It is therefore unable to be magnetized, and would be unaffected by even the strongest magnet. If you had elemental iron flowing around your bloodstream you would have an aneurysm in multiple organs and die.

thank you for setting things right exactly what i was going to post.

 

but, every substance that isnt feromagnetic is diamagnetic, so a strong enough magnet could still effect it. maybe this is strong enough, but im not sure how much is needed, since i dont work on that.

[carolkarine]

The iron in your blood exists as the Iron ion in the hemoglobin complex molecule, not as the elemental metal. It is therefore unable to be magnetized, and would be unaffected by even the strongest magnet. If you had elemental iron flowing around your bloodstream you would have an aneurysm in multiple organs and die.

 

 

thank you for setting things right exactly what i was going to post.

 

but, every substance that isnt feromagnetic is diamagnetic, so a strong enough magnet could still effect it. maybe this is strong enough, but im not sure how much is needed, since i dont work on that.

 

gotcha. mechanical engineer here, I don't know how the body works

[Xorbot]

That moment when you accidentally drop this magnet into your box of floppy disks.

[ForsakenLive]

Magnet magic just got upgraded! Gratz to the wizards

[ShiverMePenguins]

The iron in your blood exists as the Iron ion in the hemoglobin complex molecule, not as the elemental metal. It is therefore unable to be magnetized, and would be unaffected by even the strongest magnet. If you had elemental iron flowing around your bloodstream you would have an aneurysm in multiple organs and die.

I.... I mean technically you're wrong. But you're still wrong. Everything is magnetic in some form or another.

ferro

dia

para

anti

 

And the magnetism of iron ions are the same of metallic iron: paramagnetic.

 

metallic iron has six 3d electrons, two paired and four unpaired which means it is paramagnetic.

the iron in your blood is found in the heme protein iron (II) with six d electrons, two paired and four unpaired (though it's missing both of its 4s electrons)

 

Both forms of iron exhibit the same form of magnetic susceptibility as each other.

 

 

So if you did indeed have a block of crystalline hemoglobin that block would be attracted to the magnet because of its iron content, so that's exactly why you're wrong. Granted the amount needed would be almost 1.356x that of the magnet in this article for it to be pulled directly from your blood, but thats beside the point.

 

When hemoglobin is dissolved in a red blood cell the situation is a slightly different. the heme will hydrogen bond with the liquid in the cell, which obstructs its lateral movement, kind of like a golf ball falling through a vat of Canadian syrup. Iron is only about 1/3 % of Hb by mass, so what you have is a very tiny human dragging a very large rock through a very thick syrup. A magnet would attract the iron in blood, however because of the pressure in the vessel exerted by other forces it would be swept away along with the blood vessel. That is why if the iron content was increased to above normalized levels in the human body it would have a greater chance of pulling the iron out, because the greater surface area to pull from would start to negate the pressure of blood flow (though with this powerful of a magnet you'd possibly die from poisoning first as a human body couldn't withstand the amount of... "polution" of having that many iron ions in your blood. The normal concentration of iron in blood is 60-170 ug/dL, or 6-17 ug per cm^3 blood. The density of metallic iron is 7.9 g/cm^3. basically, any given volume of metallic iron has about a .88 times as many iron atoms as the same volume of blood. In a 1 cm cube of blood, you'd have the equivalent of a lump of iron the size of a slightly goliathic-bacteria dissolved in the cube. So the magnetic force exerted to pull say a 1 ounce block of iron would needed to be increased by about 10,000 times (give or take a few thousand) to pull the Hb out of your body. OR... you could already achieve this by a semi complex array of magnetic structures, but then the human would definitely die.

Finally, the motion of the hemoglobin molecule would reduce the attraction. It rotates and moves within the RBC in varying ways, meaning it is attracted and repelled by other molecules nearby. A magnetic field would turn the Hb molecule so that the magnetic field of the iron atom is aligned with it, but intermolecular interactions between the Hb and other molecules "bumps" the Hb so that the Fe is sometimes turned the "wrong" direction in the field. The more often Hb is bumped and turned, the less effective the field is at attracting the Fe. At the so-called Curie temperature, the effect of the field is completely buried by the random motion. Hb-bound Fe++ isn't complete immune to the field, only less affected by it than it would be at a cooler temperature or in a less concentrated chemical environment.

 

 

 

So basically you're wrong. And I explained science-like exactly why you're wrong. So please I understand that while you may be interested in science and other things complex, do not misinform individuals based upon a introductory course of biology and/or physics. If I had the resources I could easily rip out the iron in a humans blood, it would just be impractical and quite honestly fucked up to do so. I mean basically what you're doing is pulling all the hemoglobin out, as the amount of ACTUAL magnetic force to separate an iron ion from its familial blood brethren would be about 3x greater than the amount needed to pull the heme out of you.