[Kosh]

Cool

One of those facts of life that physicists live with is that every magnet ever made has a north and a south pole. When researchers try to split the two, they simply get another magnet with poles of its own. There's no reason that should be the case, and for decades they have been on the hunt for a single pole, or monopole.

"People have been looking for monopoles in cosmic rays and particle accelerators — even Moon rocks," says Jonathan Morris, a researcher at the Helmholtz Centre for Materials and Energy in Berlin.

[Herra Tohtori]

Technically, a stream of magnetic monopoles would probably induce a looped electric field...

However, I remain somewhat sceptic before I see it established through peer review. The experiment seems to have a lot of room for interpretation just based on that article, but we all know how internet articles of science usually turn out.

[Kosh]

It did come from Nature, but yeah. It would be so cool if it was true.

[BloodEagle]

Assuming that they're correct, what would this mean for anything?

[Mongoose]

Probably nothing practical in the near future, but it'd still be ridiculously cool nonetheless.

I'm not about to start jumping up and down about it either, though.  Assuming that article's description is accurate (even as a physics major, I'm not about to subject myself to trudging through the actual papers ), it seems difficult to determine whether what they're seeing really are distinct monopoles, or just a structure made up of paired dipoles at a minuscule scale.

[General Battuta]

Magnetic monopoles have some serious implications in cosmology. I believe they can be produced as a result of phase transitions in the cooling universe - topological defects caused by sudden changes in the state of the universe.

[Liberator]

*Liberator smells the beginnings of GN physics

[General Battuta]

GN?

[Mika]

Discovery of magnetic monopoles would cause serious implications within Physics, starting from teaching of electromagnetism, requiring drastic rethinking of cosmology and rippling towards electrical engineering. I'm not informed enough to say anything about the effect on quantum mechancis.

These things have been searched for centuries, and I guess quite a lot of professors have told their students that none have been found and most likely they don't exist. This is the first time somebody has been able to say at least something against them. A quite good reminder that Science is self-correcting.

It is interesting they have discovered a way to get the magnetic field lines separated and behave like a point source. Nobody has seen such behavior before, whether that is magnetic monopole or not. Interesting to see what kind of stuff this will lead to.

[Liberator]

GN?

I guess I'm the only who watched that version of Gundam.... /cry

[Stormkeeper]

I guess I'm the only who watched that version of Gundam.... /cry

No fear. I KNOW THIS GN OF WHICH YOU SPEAK!

[Bobboau]

this means a lot, if it's true, which I doubt it is. but  basically magnetism and electrical flow are one in the same, when electrical charges move it has the effect of a magnetic field coiled around it, and when electrical charges move in a circle this coiling effect causes a north-south magnetic field to be produced, a changing magnetic field conversely causes movement in electrical particles similar to what would cause the change in  magnetic field.

so if this is true then the concept of electromagnetism may be wrong, which is ****ING HUGE, because that was the precursor of relativity and quantum physics, and it's assumptions (like monopoles can not exist)  are also assumptions of those two. so this would take us back a few hundred years of reworking, if it were true.

[General Battuta]

Mrm, not quite. Monopoles are predicted by, and accounted for, by a number of models built off of general relativity and QM.

[Akalabeth Angel]

Haha for a moment from the misread title I thought you guys were talking about Happy Meals

[BloodEagle]

Wait. What?

[Akalabeth Angel]

Wait. What?

Oh yeah that is a stretch.
Well I misread the subject title as Monopoly Magnets and then McDonalds always has these Monopoly contests to win cash and somehow in my brain the idea of some free promotional toy give away at McD's became included in that thought.

Yeah, so . . . Yesterday I had two hours of sleep . . . .



Anyway. Magnets. Cool.

[Flaser]

I guess I'm the only who watched that version of Gundam.... /cry

No fear. I KNOW THIS GN OF WHICH YOU SPEAK!

Meh, young kids these days.
Back in 'ma day, we used to call 'em 'novsky particles.... damn fine machines we built with those.

[Mongoose]

Mrm, not quite. Monopoles are predicted by, and accounted for, by a number of models built off of general relativity and QM.

Yeah, this.  The real surprise to physicists up to this point is that we haven't found any evidence of them existing, since by all rights they should be able to.

[Kosh]

Mrm, not quite. Monopoles are predicted by, and accounted for, by a number of models built off of general relativity and QM.

Yeah, this.  The real surprise to physicists up to this point is that we haven't found any evidence of them existing, since by all rights they should be able to.

All in good time......