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3.A08

Attraction and Repulsion: The Magic of Magnets

Undergraduate · Historical course

Fall 2005

This Freshman Advising Seminar surveys the many applications of magnets and magnetism. To the Chinese and Greeks of ancient times, the attractive and repulsive forces between magnets must have seemed magical indeed. Through the ages, miraculous curative powers have been attributed to magnets, and magnets have been used by illusionists to produce "magical" effects. Magnets guided ships in the Age of Exploration and generated the electrical industry in the 19th century. Today they store information and entertainment on disks and tapes, and produce sound in speakers, images on TV screens, rotation in motors, and levitation in high-speed trains. Students visit various MIT projects related to magnets (including superconducting electromagnets) and read about and discuss the history, legends, pseudoscience, science, and technology of types of magnets, including applications in medicine. Several short written reports and at least one oral presentation will be required of each participant.

Readings

  • Most assigned readings are from the course textbook:
    Listed reading
  • Livingston, J. D. Driving Force: The Natural Magic of Magnets . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997. ISBN: 9780674216457.
    Listed reading
  • Lec #: 1 · Topics: Introduction: Basics of Hard and Soft Magnetic Materials · READINGS: Driving Force . Chapter 1 (facts 1-8), pp. 75-76 (fact 9), pp. 118-119 (fact 10), and pp. 123-129.
    Reading assignment
  • Lec #: 2 · Topics: Magnetic Forces and Curie Temperatures · READINGS: Driving Force . Chapter 10.
    Reading assignment
  • Lec #: 3 · Topics: Basics of Electromagnetism · READINGS: Driving Force . Chapter 9.
    Reading assignment
  • Livingston, J. D. “100 Years of Magnetic Memories.” Scientific American 279, no. 5 (November 1998): 106-111.
    Listed reading
  • Lec #: 5 · Topics: Superconductivity · READINGS: Driving Force . pp. 239-246.
    Reading assignment
  • Lec #: 7 · Topics: Oral Presentations - Part 1 · READINGS: Driving Force . pp. 76-82 and related handouts.
    Reading assignment
  • Lec #: 9 · Topics: Oral Presentations - Part 2 · READINGS: Driving Force . pp. 69-75 (Superconducting Electromagnets), pp. 183-85 (Uranium Enrichment), and pp. 227-232 (NMR).
    Reading assignment
  • Lec #: 11 · Topics: Ferrofluids · READINGS: Ferrotec’s Ferrofluid Technology Overview Web site, or other Web sites on ferrofluids. Magnetic microparticles have also found many uses in medicine, including localized drug delivery (see p. 222 of Driving Force ). ↗
    Reading assignment
  • Livingston, J. D. “The Force Is With Us.” In Britannica Yearbook of Science and the Future. Chicago, IL: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1999, pp. 132-147.
    Listed reading
  • ———. “Magnets on the Rise.” Technology Review 99, no. 4 (May/June 1996): 33-40.
    Listed reading
  • Livingston, J. D. Driving Force: The Natural Magic of Magnets . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996. ISBN: 9780674216457.
    Listed reading
  • Readings in Driving Force will be supplemented by other articles and handouts distributed in class.
    Listed reading
Sources