Word: electromagnets
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Using new techniques and novel materials, scientists have learned to construct permanent magnets of astonishing power. Into a small hunk of fancy alloy, or a little bit of fragile ceramic, they have built all the pulling power of a hefty electromagnet without its awkward current-carrying coils. But in spite of their handiness. the new magnets have a built-in flaw: their pull is permanent. They lack practical versatility because their fierce attraction for iron-bearing metal cannot be turned off at will, unlike the clumsiest electromagnet, which can be controlled by the flick of a switch...
...strongest magnetic field that Bell Labs can generate, 88,000 gauss (the unit of magnetism). It can carry more than 1,000 times as much current as a copper wire of the same size at normal temperature. Bellmen believe that it can be coiled into a superpowerful electromagnet with a field of at least 100,000 gauss...
...leave from his job as a Harvard physics professor, says of his work: "The thing that's so wonderful is that you get paid for telling the truth, just laying it out for anyone to do with as they will." It was a spare-time experiment with a borrowed electromagnet and a quarter's worth of paraffin that led to his Nobel-prizewinning "nuclear resonance" system for measuring atomic properties. In his early studies of the 21-cm. radio waves coming from hydrogen clouds in interstellar space, Purcell made do with a hastily devised antenna hung outside his Harvard laboratory...
...respects scientists know little about it. Last week Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced an attack on the elusive mysteries. With $6,000,000 from the U.S. Air Force, M.I.T. will build an ambitious laboratory devoted solely to the study of magnetism. Main feature: the world's most powerful electromagnet-a giant coil that will maintain a continuous magnetic field of 250,000 gauss, some 500,000 times stronger than the earth's magnetic field...