The picture above is ferrofluid (on a magnetized bolt). This and other toys I brought to Tutorial this week can be found at Educational Innovations. Some other sites to find "physics toys" are (1) scitoys.com (2) edsci.com Edmunds Scientific. (3) Arbor Scientific
This week is about H-fields (magnetization of material), including my favorite toys - ferromagnets - too.
Apparently the topic of magnetic torque is still cutting-edge research, check out the abstract for this week's physics colloquium: Dan Ralph, Cornell University
“Dynamics and Spectroscopy in Nanoscale Magnetic Devices ”
Abstract: In the last ten years, a new mechanism has been discovered for manipulating the magnetic moment direction in small magnetic devices, as an alternative to applying magnetic fields. When a current of spin-polarized electrons interacts with a magnet, it can transfer spin angular momentum to the magnet and thereby apply a torque directly. This spin-transfer torque can be much more efficient than magnetic fields for switching magnetic elements in memory devices, and it can also drive interesting types of magnetic dynamics not easily generated by applied fields."
I welcome your comments on the class and this website.
Send them to steven.pollock at colorado.edu
(Thanks to Prof. Chuck Rogers for many of our home page image ideas!)
Old home pages this term: Week 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 , 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13