Magnetism and Electricity... Do you get it?...

[trev333]

Magnetism and Electricity... Do you get it?...
do you grab the real strangeness of it all?... pushing 2 magnets together, and something you can't see is pushing them apart or sticking them together,,...... push an electron into a copper wire.. and instantly.. one electron pops off the other end of the wire ..if it has somewhere to go.... but the wire doesn't change..

I do.. and I don't... get it

as much as I understand a lot of real theory and I grew up at my Dad's workbench sorting resistors and watching him build/repair Valve circuits for radios, tape decks, PA's TV's.. 60's stuff.. hi tech,

I still don't get how "they" figured out that by "bending/shaping" electricity in certain circuits, inventing new things like wires, valves, transformers, caps, resistors, pots, joining them together in specific patterns..etc..
.waving wires over coils and magnets and finding out current is created in wires....generators...
Then beaming out huge waves of "something" from towers that you could suck unseen from the air, beamed from miles away..and turn it into radio/sound... with a crystal radio circuit even... or a big boomy radiogram..

Weird science..

and now we mess with wood, strings, magnets, wires, coils, valves, etc...
and get the sound of a Telecaster.... ain't it great..that sound...

Still a true wonder to me everyday..... as much as we can analyse the science behind it, ad finitum...

I love the magic that magnetism, wires and electricity create...

We live in it, we are surrounded by it.. we ourselves are electric... our guitars make it...and give it away along cable thingys to stranger boxes.. Amplifiers.Oooooo. that make it sound kinda HUGE on 11...

now come on?.. do you really get it?... ..

at what point up the electricity hill do you fall off the cliff into complete mystery?... Huh?... I was with you up untillll.

AAARRRGGGHhhhhhhhh...

[Duncas]

i get it competely. most of magnetism is still a mystery to modern science. we know it happens but not why. its fascinating.

i did A-level physics so yeah thats my source.

theres weirder stuff too.

[fuzzbender]

i find myself strangely attracted to this

[uriah1]

Where's Tesla when you need him.

[emu!]

You know...they (scientists) say the world is one huge gigantic magnet. Electrons flowing from the south pole to the north...or maybe it's from the north pole to the south

Anyway, what if...one day...the rocket scientists deliver a HUGE metal string into the atmosphere. Then, an astronaut uses a GIGANTIC plastic pick to "pick" the huge string up in space. The string vibrates like a guitar string...and...the earths magnetism gets disrupted like a giant gutiar pickup.

What note would it be?

[Duncas]

Originally Posted by emu!

You know...they (scientists) say the world is one huge gigantic magnet. Electrons flowing from the south pole to the north...or maybe it's from the north pole to the south

Anyway, what if...one day...the rocket scientists deliver a HUGE metal string into the atmosphere. Then, an astronaut uses a GIGANTIC plastic pick to "pick" the huge string up in space. The string vibrates like a guitar string...and...the earths magnetism gets disrupted like a giant gutiar pickup.

What note would it be?

Bb.

[64Strat]

I've made a 34 year career out of microelectronics... the real little bits.

I sort of get it.

[middy]

Nobody really "gets" it. Study it deeply enough and you run into quantum mechanics.

"I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics." -- Richard Feynman

[Twangasaurus]

Magnetism is pretty cool, helps keep all the molecules in our body from flying apart. Also protects us from radiation and makes cool light shows in the process.
I heard birds worship it as a deity and that all their holy scriptures are divined from listening to insane clown posse records backwards.

[Nick JD]

Space bends. Like attracts. Things break. Nuff said.

[uriah1]

Just wait until the Higgs-boson shows up in Switzerland....!

[telex76]

Aren't we about due for the Earths magnetic poles to flip?
Wonder what that will be like, or will we even notice?

[Buckocaster51]

We can make it work, but we don't understand why.

The magnetism generators are even harder to keep running than the gravity generators.

Woe be to the community that lets their's run dry on oil...

[Ledoux]

Depends on the definition of understanding magnetism. If you mean the behavior and calculations of induction and current flow, then it's a matter of a second semester calc based physics class in college or the Khan academy videos (got me through with an A-). If you mean why these things happen, well then no I don't have a clue. I really don't know if anyone truely does, and when we finally do, it'll be a whole new world.

[bowman]

I agree that nobody really knows why our world behaves the way it does. You can explain it intellectually for just so long; then you inevitably reach the point where you have to explain things by means of particles that "we can't really see", and "we can't really prove they exist, but they must" etc. Some of these theories may be proved true, some false, and some are considered true for awhile and then false - or the opposite. What a strange thing physics is - the hard science is still true, but everything else beyond that is just speculation.
Kinda like the way we feel about guitars...

[jimd]

Originally Posted by emu!

You know...they (scientists) say the world is one huge gigantic magnet. Electrons flowing from the south pole to the north...or maybe it's from the north pole to the south

Anyway, what if...one day...the rocket scientists deliver a HUGE metal string into the atmosphere. Then, an astronaut uses a GIGANTIC plastic pick to "pick" the huge string up in space. The string vibrates like a guitar string...and...the earths magnetism gets disrupted like a giant gutiar pickup.

What note would it be?

It's been tried using the space shuttle. Not to make music, but to generate electricity.

Space Tether Experiment

[mrboson]

Magnetic fields have been generating music long before people invented it:

This black hole is producing a B-flat note 57 octaves below middle C. The article doesn't say it, but the vibrations in the gas around it come from interactions with the black hole's magnetic field. Think of it like a gigantic speaker magnet and the gas is the cone.

[Tarnisher]

I have always been amazed by the fact that electric guitars work. We know that they do, and we know how they do, but we still don't know why. It's about as close to magic as I've ever gotten.

[getbent]

charisma is even more complicated... that sort of....
animal magnetism.

[kidmo]

Magic created by Magicians.