Don't forget a good old rain cloud!!!!

Do you think more inventions will be discovered in the future using magnetism?

If so what is your hunch of new inventions will be?

yes

I am convinced that the electro magnetic field created by an inductor is the key to inertialess anti-gravity drive

if I can just get more power

There are some linear versions of fusion power that might actually work due to the more practical use of pulsed high density magnetic fields. The old magnetic bottles used too much power and couldn't control the plasma well enough to produce reliable power. Think magnet around a small tube instead of magnet around a round bottle.

No clue what you guys are talking about!

yet I do hope for your sake it works

yeah, I get that a lot

We are talking about magnets!!!!!!

And let's not leave out rail guns at relativistic velocities.

and my favorite application

mag lev roller coasters

I was thinking mag lev trains. Seems like everyone has them but us now.

I just feel that magnets will have a bright future on inventions.

Is magnetism used for those satellites probes that fly to pluto or Saturn?

It would be interesting to know these things.

If you are really really interested in magnets look up

Ion drive

Rail guns

Magnetic bottles

Mag lev trains

Magnetic drive space craft

on the net and post some of what you find her. You will learn a lot about magnets and specifically what we are talking about. Some of this stuff is the future of mankind.

Oh wow magnetic drive space craft sounds very interesting. I will research and see what I come up with. There one can determine if it is possible or just fiction.

I think it is possible. I can't imagine what new inventions will occur just 50 years from today.

Fascinating

The ICE train in Germany is fascinating. Comfortable, great service, great restaurants inside, and they have speeds unimaginable, yet one doesn't feel it.

I love riding on such a express train travelling to other countries in Europe.

Space Magnetism may hold solution to fusion power


New discoveries about magnetic field lines and the first-ever direct observation of their reconnection in space are offering hope that scientists will learn how to unlock fusion power as an energy source in the future.

"The reconnection processes in the [Earth's] magnetosphere and in fusion devices are the same animal," said James Drake, a University of Maryland physicist.

Space contains magnetic fields that direct the flow of plasma, an energetic fourth state of matter consisting of positive ions and electrons. The plasma particles normally follow the paths of the magnetic field lines like streams of cars following highways.

Magnetic reconnection can release that stored energy when two magnetic field lines bend towards each other and fuse to create new field lines. The effect is not unlike an earthquake forcibly realigning parallel highways into perpendicular routes and channeling cars along the newly created paths. Although some released plasma energy travels in a straight line — called a super-Alfvenic electron jet — other plasma particles fan out as though escaping the opening of a trumpet.

The effect not only fascinates astrophysicists but also frustrates efforts on Earth to create sustained energy sources through fusion. Experimental fusion reactors force atomic particles to fuse together and release energy as plasma. The plasma is contained within a "magnetic bottle," or a cage of magnetic field lines, so that the high plasma temperatures can maintain the fusion reaction.

However, magnetic reconnection can break the magnetic bottle and allow plasma to reach the colder walls of the reactor where fusion will not sustain itself.

Drake became interested in the topic when he looked at early fusion studies and realized how many theories at the time were "dead wrong" about magnetic reconnection. To learn more about the phenomenon, he had to look beyond Earth.

"I started realizing some of the best magnetic reconnection data is in space," Drake said.

During a sabbatical at the University of California-Berkeley, the theoretical physicist happened to work in the same office as Tai Phan, an observational physicist who was looking at magnetic field data from the European Space Agency's Cluster satellites.

"I was doing theory, Tai was doing data and we suddenly saw this correspondence," Drake marveled. "It was purely accidental."

The four Cluster satellites crossed through a turbulent plasma region just outside Earth's magnetic field in January 2003, when they happened to run into an area where magnetic reconnection had occurred. Physicists thought such areas, known as electron diffusion regions, were just over six miles long and so spacecraft would probably miss them in the vastness of space.

Instead, a new look at the Cluster data showed that the electron diffusion region measured 1,864 miles long — 300 times longer than early theoretical expectations and still four times longer than seen in the latest astrophysics simulations. That also marked the first ever direct observations of magnetic reconnection in space.

Although the basic physics behind magnetic reconnection remain a mystery, Cluster promises that future missions have a good chance of further examining the phenomenon. One example is NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale mission, which will consist of four spacecraft that study why the plasma particles can become "unfrozen" or unstuck from the magnetic field lines they normally travel along. Magnetic reconnection is simply the most "dramatic" example of this, Drake said.

Such an energy release amounts to a conversion of magnetic energy into particle energy, which can occur in black hole jets and drives solar flares. Drake hopes to someday create a computer model that can accurately describe the conversion process — and if scientists can also apply some understanding towards improving fusion reactors, so much the better.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/2008-02-06-space-magnetism-fusion_N.htm

I don't think so. It fascinates me, why everyone thinks that life happens "accidentally" and like we barely survive and "we are so lucky".

NO.

Life is actually much more resistant and dominant, and comes up anywhere it could. Though what kind of life, that's only dependant of the circumstances and the environment.

It's not that there is life on Earth, because accidental events and protecting "coincidences" like the magnetic field around Earth, etc.

but living organisms adjusted and developed, based on the given circumstances. If the circumstances would be different, then there would be another type of life form depending on the other circumstances.
Scientists looking for life on planets, that are similar to our planet's environment and they are dead wrong. They could only find similar lifeforms if the given circumstances are similar to Earth. If it's not similar, they must look for life, that are able to sustain the given environment, and not just sustain, but being completely adjusted to it and favor that environment.

For example: On Mars, I would look for life, adjusted to the atmospheric pressure, given Sunlight, given weather and gases present. I wouldn't be looking for apes and neither white pigeons, but something different, how about bacteria or perhaps something lives underground or under the polar cap etc...

There have been some recent hypothesis that magnetism could be use to warp space-time and create warp drives. It something that is being experimented with.

You see I knew it. Magnetism will define many new inventions in the future. I hope brilliant scientists will come up with something.

How fascinating it would be to take a ride on a spaceship that can go warp 8 and make it to pluto in only a few hours to look at.

Of course I would never have such money to go on such a ride, but it is fascinating.

The closest I can travel to other planets is in in a pc game called "Freelancer"

and that is fascinating enough since I have such a vivid imagination to begin with

If I tell you, that forget about that little magnet thingie you see, or the electro-magnet (electric motor), because they are obsolete and only a little step but highly inefficient, and people should be looking to understand what is/why is/how/where the black holes are and they are the key to understand space/time , would you believe me?

I can sit on the couch and play with magnets

black holes keep sucking up the furniture