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starship-design: Re: magnetic monopoles



To all, and especially Steve, Kyle and Jim,

>I'm not yet certain, but a collection of dipoles placed with the south
>poles inside the sphere and the north poles placed outside is just that,
>a collection of dipoles.  A monopole should have only a single pole,
>regardless of where you place your sensors.  A plot of the magnetic lines
>of force might help demonstrate this.

Such a configuration of dipoles still doesn't have an all North outside! If
one measures carefully, one will see that between the North poles there are
concentrated South (and West and East) parts.

When having a magnetic dipole, you should always be able to complete a loop
when drawing a field line:

N-pole -> outside the magnet -> S-pole -> inside the magnet.

        ___
       /   \
      |     \
  N +++++    \
    + | +     |
    + | +     |
    + | +     |
    + | +     |
  S +++++    /
      |     /
      \____/


So, as far as I know, you won't be able to build a monopole with dipoles,
unless you somehow manage to break the field line (that's why I spoke about
space distortion)

I could imagine that near the event horizon of a black hole the lines are
broken similar to the fact that electric-charge field lines are absorbed.


Timothy