
Physicists Build World’s First “Magnetic Hose” For Transmitting Magnetic Fields - bane
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/514201/physicists-build-worlds-first-magnetic-hose-for-transmitting-magnetic-fields/
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JonSkeptic
->these devices could become an important enabling technology for quantum information processing in future

I think they will also be critical for empowering diversity, team cohesion,
and synergy; culminating in a forward transition of outside the box, paradigm
shifting technology in the cloud.

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jerf
You're holding your team together with magnets? Please, sir, tell me more
about this amazing technology.

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CountHackulus
You're reading too much into this, he is literally holding them together with
magnets.

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aspensmonster
>Their conclusion is that a “magnetic hose” consisting of concentric tubes of
superconducting and ferromagnetic materials ought to do the trick. They say
that a tube consisting of 20 concentric rings that is about ten times longer
than it is wide, should transmit about 90 per cent of a magnetic field at one
end to the other. Indeed, a tube of just 2 concentric rings should transmit
about 75 per cent.

"About 75 percent" is a stretch, at least if the article author and I are
looking at the same paper. According to the actual paper, in figure 2e, it
looks closer to 68 or 69 percent. Not a huge nit pick though.

>These guys have tested this idea with a single superconducting tube 7 cm long
(made of BiPbSrCaCuO) and filled with a ferromagnetic alloy (of cobalt and
iron).

How much does a superconducting tube of BiPbSrCaCuO that is 10 times as long
as it is wide cost to manufacture? How much does it cost to keep it cool
enough to superconduct? It's billed as a high Tc (108 K) superconductor from
the manufacturer (Can), but there is no price list to be found. Figure 4a in
the paper seems to indicate that this effect is indeed only observed with a
superconducting tube with a ferromagnet core.

Regardless, it's still a cool effect to see in action! If there's an actual
physicist in the room, I'd love to hear more about Chapter four in the paper.
It seems that the discretization to more than just a single Superconductor-
Feromagnet pair --figure 2e in the paper is the main graph showing the
efficiency gains as the number of pairs goes up-- was done using FET, after a
brief justification argument that goes over my head, and was not actually
produced and measured in lab. I think it'd be a logical extension (if not an
expensive one) to produce some of these higher-paired tubes and take more
measurements for another paper.

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tantalor
Isn't transmitting magnetic fields over a long distance trivial by converting
it to an electric current, sending it down a wire, and then back to a magnetic
field?

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tanvach
Unfortunately electric current can only be generated using change in magnetic
field. So this won't work with a static magnetic field, as is the case in the
article.

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tantalor
Static is relative. Spin a wire loop around a static magnetic field and you
get a current, right?

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tanvach
Only if the loop moves, which actually experiences changes in magnetic field

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leephillips
The first use of the term "pals" was OK, but the repeated use of phrases like
"these guys", and "and pals" in the anonymous article, in an attempt, I guess,
to project a casual tone, got pretty grating pretty fast. Oh, interesting
research.

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tocomment
I wonder how much of a break through this is? It seems like anything with
controlling and extending magnetic fields could be useful in advancing fusion
research, ram scoops? MRI's, wireless power?

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JoeAltmaier
I imagine this might be (more) useful on a silicon-wafer scale. Generate/move
magnetic fields using a chip - a new way to get highly intense/focussed disk
read/write heads?

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evo_9
'Quantum information devices...'.

I just love that we live in a time when that statement is in a science article
and not limited to a cool scifi story.

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sfaruque
Could this mean that a "magentic hose" built really tall, be used to launch
objects into space?

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ancarda
Could we be close to making sonic screwdrivers?

For those who don't get the reference:
<http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Sonic_screwdriver>

