Re: starship-design: Magnetic Monopole

[Steve VanDevender <stevev@efn.org>]

kyle writes:
 > > If your object is a dipole (and I strongly suspect it is, you probably
 > > just aren't being careful enough about measuring the field) then it will
 > > show orientation in a magnetic field consistent with that; it will line
 > > up differently depending on the direction of an externally-applied
 > > magnetic field.
 > 
 > Its a dipole, but with monopolar qualities. A south field is produced
 > (and only south) on the inside of the device, and only north on the
 > outside. I still think its useful though.

That's too easy not to have been tried before.  I know there has to be
some reason why you can't just build a ball of dipoles with all the
south poles pointing in and north poles pointing out and have that be a
monopole, but I'm not knowledgeable enough about electromagnetism to say
why at the moment.

You should probably get together with a good physics teacher and find
out whether what you've built could really work like you think it does.