Recommendations for Magnetic Fun!
I had an experience a little while back that got me thinking about the world of experiences out there for people with magnetic implants. I was taking a chemistry course, and on the last day of class, the professor decided to show off various chemistry reactions/"tricks". He ended with demonstrating a superconductor - and I guess I didn't know that much about them, because I had never heard of the Meissner effect. For those who don't know what that is, when a material cools to the point that it transitions to a superconducting state, it excludes its magnetic field. I'm not good at explaining it, so look it up on Wikipedia. The cool part is that high temperature superconductors (like the one demonstrated) can cause permanent magnets to levitate if placed above the superconductor.
I went up to the professor as soon as class ended, asked if he could demonstrate it again, and explained that I have a magnet in my finger and wanted to see if I could feel what was going on. He got the material down to superconducting temperature, and I slowly moved my finger toward it.
And I didn't feel a thing. This could have been because my hands were shaky (I was oddly nervous) but in any case, I couldn't tell that anything at all was going on. I was disappointed, but at the same time, it's rather exciting - I might be the only person to have ever had that opportunity. And that makes me wonder how many other things there are out there that I haven't thought to try that others have discovered/experienced.
I later had another interesting experience. In what was probably the first and only practical use of my magnet, I was helping a person at a gas station who asked if I could jump his car since his battery had died. I went over, set everything up, waited, and his car still wouldn't start. We waited some more, but it still wouldn't start. I decided to check to see if the connection on the cables was no good by putting my finger near the wiring. Nothing. I moved one of the clamps (please forgive me if I use the wrong terminology) around and felt a spike of magnetism in my finger... but then nothing. I repeated this a couple of times, and then I realized that it wasn't the connection - it was that his battery was already charged, so no electricity was flowing between the two car batteries. I was able to problem-solve with my magnet, and that makes me feel a little like a superhero. A pretty mundane superhero, but still!
So. What are the coolest things you've done with your magnet, and what would you recommend other people try? What are you interested in trying (whether you have a magnet in your finger or not)? A bunch of us have magnets, so we should be sharing about them!
Comments