"Martin Brown" wrote in message
...
Alan Holmes wrote:

"Nick Maclaren" wrote in message
...

In article ,
Alan Holmes wrote:

I didn't know you could magnetise water!

You can magnetise pretty well anything at 10 tesla.

What is a tesla, does it hurt?

Only if you are wearing a mild steel belt buckle (or anything else
ferromagnetic). Really high power magnets are surrounded by warnings.

Telsa was a Russian guy heavily into arcs and sparks - and ultimately
responsible for the adoption of AC mains power distribution (Edison wanted
DC). He also gave his name to the SI unit of magnetic field strength.

The best neodymium rare earth alloy magnets these days are of order 1T. I
doubt very much if the scam artists are selling are selling anything like
top grade ones. Copper magnetic jewellry works by a powerful placebo
effect - the more you have paid for it the more effective you will find it
to be. The following is a reasonably fun toy science magnet site.

http://www.dansdata.com/magnets.htm

High end superconducting magnets used for NMR imaging are around 1-2T and
analysis now can be made up to 20T or so. They affect the spins of atomic
nuclei rather than the puny electrons responsible for chemistry. The world
record synthetic magnetic field is about one order of magnitude higher
still.

If unshielded they wipe bank cards in the blink of an eye.

Regards,
Martin Brown

That's why The Chemists look at the puny electrons by ESR ;-)
Big ain't always beautiful