Flux, issue 8 (February 2012)

Build a Scientist!From elementary schoolto the lab, how you canbecome a scientistpAGE 16

Woolly rhinoFossil Hunt pAGE 04

Hidden MagLabtour pAGE 20

editor’s note

Wishing on a star has received plenty of good press, but it’s not how the three research-ers featured in this issue made their dreams come true. For them, it took hard work, deter-mination and scientific expertise. We hope their stories will incite you to lay the ground-work you need to make your own dreams a reality.

For years, MagLab engineer Tom Painter wanted to be his own boss and run his own business. Today, his engineering skills have allowed him to do that. He’s gotten in on the ground floor of an amazing international project and is helping to create a gigantic, sci-fi worthy machine that could potentially provide energy for much of the world. Read more on page 12.

MagLab geochemist Yang Wang, on the other hand, prefers expeditions to exotic places and making new discoveries. She did both recently when she joined an international team of paleontologists and journeyed to a remote basin in Tibet. Dig into her science adventure on page 4.

It might surprise you to know that some scientists, such as researcher Art Edison, start out as artists. Art’s a saddlemaker turned ranch manager turned worm biochemist — who still enjoys working with leather. You can read about his colorful career path on page 18.

Since we’re hoping that that one or more of these stories will get you thinking about a career in science — for yourself or someone you know — we’ve provided a blueprint of sorts in “Build a Scientist!” on page 16. There, you’ll find a description of the key characteristics of a budding scientist, as well as some of the opportunities available at the MagLab for scientists-in-training — and for their teachers, too.

For inventors of all ages, we also have a special treat: a close look at the mythical per-petual motion machine, a device that has teased the minds of many innovative pioneers. If you’ve ever thought of building one, check out this story on page 2.

Enjoy!

On wishes, work and pioneering scienceCreating a life you love

FLUX MAGAZINE Issue 8

varying interests What do a saddle,

a microscope and a worm have in common? They’re

all part of researcher Art Edison’s colorful life.

16 Build a ScientistFrom elementary school to the laboratory, we review how you can attain a career in science.

02 Magnet Fact or FictionAre there such things as perpetual motion machines?

09 Tooth SleuthScientists study woolly rhino teeth to learn what it ate.

11 Magnet AssemblyJust how many parts go into building a research magnet?

12 Tom Painter’s pathA MagLab scientist partnerswith an international project.

18 Scientist SpotlightQ + A with Art Edison,molecular biologist at UF.

28 Data DeconstructedHow scientists obtain data from magnets, step-by-step.

32 Open HouseTallahassee’s MagLab welcomes 5,000 visitors February 18.

33 Last Look: The 97.4 TThe strongest nondestructive magnet in the world.

Contents

photo essay

20 The Hidden MagLabFive incredible places you wouldn’t see on a regular tour of the Lab.

what is this?

15 Cloudy CluesStill confused? We reveal the answer. Find us on Facebook, Twitter & YouTube or visit magnet.fsu.eduCONNECT WITH US

magLab research

04 Journey to TibetMagLab scientist Yang Wangjoins an expedition to unearththe oldest woolly rhino fossils ever found.

cover feature

02


FLUX MAGAZINEIssue 8 / wInter 2012

Magnet Lab DirectorGregory s. Boebinger

Associate Lab Director Brian Fairhurst

Director of Public Affairs Amy w. Mast

Flux Editor Kathleen Laufenberg

Graphic Designers Lizette Vernon Dana robinsonrebecca sumerall

Photographer Dave Barfield

AboUtFlux is a twice-yearly publication dedicated to exploring the re-search, magnet technology and science outreach conducted at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory’s three campuses in Florida and New Mexico.

the Magnet Lab is a national user facility that provides state of the art research resources for magnet-related research in all areas of science and engineering. The Magnet Lab is supported by the National Science Foundation and the state of Florida. It is oper-ated by Florida State University, the University of Florida and Los Alamos National Laboratory.

SUbScrIptIoNSWant to get some extra copiesfor a classroom or a favorite sci-ence buff? There are two ways:

u Contact Amy Mast at:[email protected]

v subscribe online at: www.magnet.fsu.edu/ mediacenter/publications/ subscribe.aspx

coNtActthe Magnet Lab1800 E. Paul Dirac Drive Tallahassee, FL 32310(850) 644-0311 www.magnet.fsu.edu

Ahh, the mythical perpetual motion ma-chine. It’s the mechanical version of a free lunch, with an allure that’s persisted for cen-turies. Many an inventor has labored into the wee hours determined to create one. Even at the Magnet Lab, scientists still get an occa-sional letter from an inventor who claims to have built one.

“The fascination of it is really very simple: It’s about getting something for nothing,” says physicist and magnet engineer Huub Weijers.

On the surface, a perpetual motion ma-chine often appears to be made of wheels, le-vers, pulleys and other cool-looking stuff. But what exactly is a perpetual motion machine?

“What most people mean when they say perpetual motion machine is something that runs forever and keeps producing something,” Weijers explains. “In other words, once you get the perpetual motion machine going, it keeps going and it keeps giving you stuff without you putting anything else into it.”

The result: Something for nothing. Some possible examples: a car engine that, once it gets going, runs without any additional fuel; a heater that, once turned on and working, doesn’t require any additional power; an En-ergizer bunny with a battery that never runs down. Pretty neat, huh?

There’s only one catch. Perpetual-motion machines don’t exist, except in strange videos on YouTube and on even stranger websites.

“If someone really did create a perpetual motion machine, he (or she) wouldn’t be selling the plans for it on eBay,” says Weijers. “They’d be selling the energy the machine creates

somehow, because they would make a lot more money that way if it actually worked.”

officer, arrest that machine!If someone did invent a real perpetual mo-

tion machine, it would rock the physics world. You’d hear about it on the TV news and read about it in banner headlines. That’s because a perpetual motion machine would break two fundamental rules of physics: the first two laws of thermodynamics.

“Therm” comes from the Greek word for heat (think thermos bottle and thermal un-derwear), so as you can guess, both laws have a lot to do with heat. In order to understand them, you need to consider heat for a minute.

Heat can do just about anything. It moves all by itself from one place to another — i.e. from warm spots to colder spots. Its mere presence excites atoms and gets them zing-ing around. It’s a powerful, fundamental form of energy (think of the sun), thermal energy.

The first law of thermodynamics says that energy can’t be created nor destroyed, it only changes form. This law is also called the conservation of energy.

Specifically, the first law of thermody-

Does the perfect machine exist?BY KATHLEEN LAUFENBERG

magnet fact or fiction

“If someone really did create a perpetual motion machine, he (or she) wouldn’t be selling the plans for it on eBay. They’d be selling the energy the machine creates.”— Huub weijers, MagLab scientist

namics explains what happens when you add thermal energy to a system: Some of the energy stays in the sys-tem and some leaves. For example, put a kettle of tepid water on to boil. Some of the heat transforms the tepid water into hot water. Some of the heat creates steam and leaves the system.

The second law says when energy changes from one form to another, some of the energy is lost (usually in the form of heat). For example, when you drive your car, some of the gas is trans-formed into heat and dissipates. Just touch your engine’s hood after a run to the store. Or put another way, the sec-

ond law of thermodynamics says that no reaction is 100-percent effi cient.

simply irresistibleSo a genuine perpetual motion ma-

chine would shatter one or both of these long-held laws. Such a device would have to create energy, rather than transform some type of energy into work, break-ing the fi rst law. Or it would have to be 100-percent effi cient, breaking the sec-ond law. Although many have tried, no one has yet fabricated such a device.

“Despite all the new discoveries that have happened in physics — quantum mechanics, particle physics, whatever — these laws of thermodynamics have never been proven to be wrong,” Weijers says. “But that is something diff erent from saying that they cannot be wrong— and that is part of the fascination.”

That fascination continues to spark people’s imagination, for inventors con-tinue to attempt to construct these machines. When they claim to have succeeded, however, they have either overlooked something — or they’re just being tricksters.

“There is either a source of energy going into the so-called perpetual mo-tion machine that is not obvious — a temperature diff erence, some solar en-ergy, some motion, something — or it is so effi cient that the loss of energy is very low, and so doesn’t show up for a long time, but it will eventually show up as a loss,” Weijers says.

If you like a brainteaser of a challenge, go ahead: Try to build a perpetual motion machine yourself. But please think twice before buying one on the internet!

Thanks to Huub Weijers for answer-ing this round of Magnet Fact or Fiction. To read more questions like these, search “fact or fi ction” at magnet.fsu.edu.

03


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PERPETUAL MOTION MACHINE®

NO MORE LIGHT BILLS when you have the machine that runs on PURE GRAVITY !!

WITNESS A TRUEMECHANICAL MARVEL

A mill that runswithout wind

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Magnet Lab geochemist Yang Wang is known for doing complex research us-ing highly technical equipment. Yet she’s also hiked the remote outback of Tibet and camped under the stars in the Hima-

layas — all in the name of scientific discovery. Because of her unique mix of skills, she was part of a team that uncovered the bones of the oldest prehistoric woolly rhino ever found. The expedition’s research received international attention in the fall of 2011 after it was published in the journal Science.

“This is a significant find,” says nationally known vertebrate paleontologist Donald Prothero of Occidental College in Los Angeles, who studies the evolution of woolly rhinos and other mammals.

The team’s Tibetan discovery suggests that the woolly rhino, and perhaps other great beasts, wandered and foraged across ancient earth in patterns not previously imagined.

“Yang played a key role in our understanding of the paleoenvironments of the Tibetan Plateau,” says expedition leader Xiaoming Wang, the curator of vertebrate paleon-tology at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles (and no relation to Yang Wang). “Her field and lab work gave us insights into the paleotemperature and precipitation mil-lions of years ago.”

04


magLab research

tibetan adventureTrekking across China

into higher altitudes, the expedition’s team members made their

discovery in Tibet’s Zanda Basin.

ANCIENTDISCOVERIES

by Kathleen Laufenberg

Tibetan expedition finds new species of woolly rhino

ZANDA BASIN

LHASA

QAIDAN BASIN

05


team workIn August 2010, the expedition team paused for a group shot after its final day of fieldwork in Tibet’s Zanda Basin. Mag- Lab scientist Yang Wang is in the first person on the bot-tom row far left; standing behind her is Florida State University graduate Chunfu Zhang, now teach-ing at Fort Hays State University in Kansas. At the op-posite end on the far right (in hat & sunglasses), is expedition leader Xiaoming Wang, the curator of ver-tebrate paleontol-ogy at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles. Others pictured are researchers from China, stu-dents and four of the team’s Tibetan drivers.

06


TravelIng, IndIana Jones sTyleWang’s research adventure began in

2007, when she accompanied a group of pa-leontologists to explore one of the most iso-lated places on earth: the Zanda (ZAH-dah) Basin in Tibet, at the base of the Himalaya Mountains. The vivid blue sky and undulat-ing mountain views stretch for miles, un-hampered by trees or brush. Majestic and wild describe this isolated landscape, yet fail to capture its immense wonder.

But the trip was demanding.The Zanda Basin (about the size of

Connecticut) is nearly three miles high. To travel there, you must first acclimate to such heights or risk altitude sickness: difficulty breathing, confusion and other symptoms that require immediate medical attention.

To avoid that, Yang, a professor in the Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmo-spheric Science at Florida State Univer-

sity, and the paleontologists from L.A.’s Natural History Museum and the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing spent their first three weeks in a lower-altitude basin, the Qaidam (pronounced TIE-dong) Ba-sin. They camped and searched for fossils at its 1.9-mile-high elevation.

Even though it was summer, Wang of-ten wore her long johns and warmest jack-ets, especially at night when temperatures can dip below freezing. During the day, the researchers covered their faces with scarves, bandit-style, to guard against the intense sun and wind.

From the Qaidam Basin, they drove to a small town to catch a 15-hour train to Lhasa, the capital of the Tibetan Autono-mous Region. But first they stopped to eat.

“When you work at such high alti-tudes, you get very hungry and I was very, very hungry,” Wang, 48, says.

She filled up on the café’s greasy food —

and was sick and nauseated for three days.In Lhasa, Wang’s stomach still churn-

ing, the team rented four-wheel-drive Land Cruisers to take them on the four-day climb up to the Zanda Basin. Along the way, there were six police and military check-points, where their permits and visas were scrutinized.

Eventually, even their cars could take them no further. They hiked to the fossil digs — and were rewarded with their big find: a prehistoric creature’s intact skull and jaw. Later, the researchers would de-termine the age of the extinct animal using a dating method called magnetostratigra-phy — a time scale for rock layers estab-lished by measuring the magnetic prop-erties of the rocks. The data revealed that they had discovered a new species of an-cient beast.

“This is the oldest, most primitive woolly rhino ever found,” says Wang. “We were all very excited!”

a magnIfIcenT beasTThey christened their find the Tibetan

woolly rhino (Coelodonta thibetana). Wool-ly rhinos are often mentioned in the same breath with giant sloths, sabertooth cats and woolly mammoths. And indeed, the Tibetan woolly rhino they discovered was an amazing beast.

When alive, it stood perhaps 6-feet tall and 12- to 14-feet long. Its head bore two

“This is the oldest, most primitive woolly rhino ever found.”— Yang wang, MagLab scientist

Scientists say the prehistoric beast used its long, 3-foot horn to sweep away snow and reveal tasty vegetation.

Image courtesy of the National Science Foundation.

07


Yang Wang pauses for a picture in the Zanda basin, just outside the 1,000-year-old tholing Monastery. She stands beside one of several places where pilgrims often leave symbolic artifacts: antlers, stones and more.

08


great horns: One grew from the tip of its nose and was about 3 feet long; a much smaller horn arose from between its eyes. It was stocky like today’s rhino, but had long, thick hair.

Prior to the team’s discovery, the old-est woolly rhino ever found was 2.6 mil-lion years old, making it an inhabitant of the Pleistocene era (2.6 million years ago to 11,700 years ago). The newly discovered Tibetan woolly rhino is 3.7 million years old, making it a member of the Pliocene epoch (5.3 million to 2.6 million years ago).

“The new Tibetan specimens make a convincing case that some of the cold-adapted animals of the Ice Age in Eurasia might have originated as cold-adapted an-imals up in the Tibetan Plateau first, then

migrated down when the entire northern part of Eurasia was glaciated,” paleontolo-gist Prothero says.

That suggests that the woolly rhino — and perhaps other great beasts — had adapted to cold weather before the Ice Age set in 2.8 million years ago.

chemIcal cluesTo unlock the Tibetan woolly rhino’s

lifestyle secrets, Wang examined the chemistry of the rhino’s fossilized teeth. To do that she uses a special tool called a mass spectrometer. (See sidebar: Secrets of a tooth sleuth.)

“We look at the chemistry of the teeth and bones, to see what the animals ate and what kind of environment they lived in.”

Her detailed analysis reveals that the creature ate grasses that grew at high al-titudes, which suggests that when the Ice Age arrived, the Tibetan woolly rhino lumbered down from the mountains into lower altitudes.

The expedition team also found horse, elephant and deer fossils. Most of the bones and teeth are being kept at the Chi-nese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, at its Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology.

Wang and other members of the team plan to return to the basin again in 2012 — and they hope to make more breakthroughs.

“Who knows what we might find when we return?” she says. “With fossils, you never know.”

Much of the Zanda basin cannot be explored by car. this photo, snapped by a team member, shows what the pristine Zanda basin looks like when you’re traveling on foot.

three members of the expedition team remove fossils from the Zanda basin in August 2010. the team spent a week unearthing the ancient bones and teeth from this spot, a painstaking process because fossils can easily break.

sTep 1. hand cleanIngXu cleans the tooth until she sees its shiny enamel. To do this, she puts her hands inside a glove box and uses a special cleaning brush. When done, she uses pressurized air to blow off dirt and dust.

09


Secrets of a tooth sleuth

How can a scientist tell what a woolly rhino ate millions of years ago just by examining its teeth? It takes patience and technical expertise. Here’s a snapshot look at how tooth detective Yingfeng Xu (Yang Wang’s assistant) uses the clues in fossilized teeth to uncover what prehistoric beasts ate.

magLab research

sTep 2. obTaInIng a sampleUsing a fine, dental-like drill, she bores into the tooth enamel until she has a-bout 3 to 10 milligrams — less than an eighth-teaspoon — of enamel powder.

CONTINUED >

10


sTep 3. chemIcal cleanIngShe pours the powder into a tiny micro-centrifuge tube. Now the sample must be chemically cleaned to remove any preserved organic materials. First she uses a solution of sodium hypochlo-rite, then acetic acid. Then the sample (shown above) is put in a centrifuge machine to separate the powder enam-el from the liquid cleaners. During this long process, the sample is shaken, left to settle, and freeze dried.

What is an isotope?Isotopes are atoms of the same

element (e.g., carbon) that have the same number of protons but a differ-ent number of neutrons. The carbon isotopes 13C and 12C, for instance, share the same number of protons, but each has a different number of neutrons. Sort of like members of a family who share the same last name, but have different first names.

sTep 4. specTromeTer analysIsFinally, after five days, the samples are ready to be analyzed in a machine called a stable-isotope ratio mass spectrome-ter. The samples (in batches of 50 to 96) are loaded into a black heating box that keeps them at an even temperature. The machine uses flashes of helium gas to rid the sample of air, then adds phosphoric acid to create a carbon-dioxide (C02) gas. The C02 gas reveals the carbon and oxy-gen isotopes in the enamel, which in turn reveals data about the woolly rhino’s diet.

sTep 5. revIewIng The daTaXu and Wang examine the samples of tooth enamel for the amounts of 13C and 12C isotopes, which are clues to what type of plants the animal ate. The C isotopes may reveal that the animal ate mostly cool-season grasses, trees and shrubs found in cold climates and high eleva-tions. Or the C isotopes may show that the animal ate warm-season grasses, like the ones found today in Florida.

carbon-126 Protons

6 Neutrons

6 Electrons

99% of all naturally occuring carbon.

carbon-136 Protons

7 Neutrons

6 Electrons

1% of all naturally occuring carbon.

11


magLab research

Though it appears, from its exte-rior, to be a squat steel barrel with a bunch of tubes coming out of it, the Magnet Lab’s 25 T Split Magnet is one of the most complicated magnet systems ever built. With fi ve magnet coils, each made up of tightly stacked Bitter plates (pictured at far right), the magnet’s plates alone number over 5,000. Every one of the plates was hand-assembled into coils, with each plate individually checked for quality. (To learn more about what our user community studies with this amazing instrument, search “split magnet” at magnet.fsu.edu.)

The split magnet’s not the only part-heavy behemoth enabling cut-ting-edge physics research. Just down the hallway is the lab’s crown jewel, the 45 tesla Hybrid magnet, the insert (or resistive magnet) por-tion of which boasts 16,979 parts of its own. The lab’s more traditional re-sistive magnets clock in at a relatively modest 11,500 parts, give or take a few hundred.

What’s 7 feet tall, gray all over, and has 18,236 body parts?BY AMY MAST

bitter pLatesBitter plates were invented by Francis Bitter in 1930.

12


It sounds like science fiction: a giant ball of star-energy suspended inside an enormous chamber, providing the world with clean power.

But sci-fi it’s not. It’s an international science project based in France called ITER (pronounced I–ter), which in Latin means the way or path. Thousands of Americans now work on this futuristic en-ergy experiment, including several Magnet Lab researchers. Engineer Tom Painter is one of them.

“Working on ITER is definitely excit-ing because it could be a world changer,” says Painter, 47. “I would love to be able to tell my grandchildren that I helped deliver even one small component to this project and made it successful.”

To work on ITER, however, Painter first had to accomplish several big tasks. Perhaps the biggest: He had to start his own company — something he’d always wanted to do — so he could bid on an ITER contract. He also needed a place to house his new business: someplace where he could lay out a half-mile of expensive

ITER cable. And to secure such a spot, he would need to relocate some endangered turtles!

He would also need to slash his time at the MagLab — from 40 to 10 hours — in order to get his fledgling company, High Performance Magnetics, off the ground.

“There’s a whole lot of uncertainty in becoming an entrepreneur,” he allows. “My own money was at risk.”

But the opportunity to become his own boss and work on ITER was just too compelling. He took the leap.

iter: what is it?ITER is an experiment to create fu-

sion, a type of nuclear energy, on a scale never before attempted. The genesis for ITER came in 1985, but the chamber where the fusion reactions will take place — called a tokomak — won’t be operational until 2019. And while ITER began as an acronym for International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, the words “ther-monuclear” and “experimental” aligned side-by-side made many people uneasy; today the ITER community prefers to link its namesake with its Latin meaning.

Fusion is literally star power: Our sun’s warmth and light are the result of fusion reactions. Fusion happens when the nucleus inside a hydrogen atom smashes into the nucleus of another hydrogen atom. This collision causes the two hy-drogen nuclei to fuse into heavier helium atoms. When they fuse, they release tre-mendous energy.

But fusion is not the type of energy produced in today’s nuclear plants. That’s fission. Fission (which in Latin means to split apart) is what happens when an atom’s nucleus is split open. Fission, when done slowly, can generate electricity. When released all at once, it’s an atom bomb.

magLab research

Tom Painter’s path

BY KATHLEEN LAUFENBERG

A magnet maker joins an international experiment that could change the world

13


“Fission and fusion are similar in that both get away from using oil and all the disadvantages of continuing to rely on oil,” Painter says. “The advantage of fusion over fission is that it’s cleaner and it’s safer.”

Nuclear fission plants, such as the Fukushima facility in Japan, have had meltdowns that result in environmental and human disasters.

But fusion is quite a different process.

big technoLogy, big bucks“I liken fusion to trying to light a

match on a cold, wet, windy night in the forest. It’s very hard to get the reaction to start and if anything happens, it just goes out,” Painter says. “And because it’s made from gases and not heavy metals, there’s

very little radioactive waste. For example, fission waste lasts for tens of thousands of years. But with fusion, the byproducts — the reactor and whatnot — become benign in about 40 years.”

So why aren’t we using fusion to power our communities now? Well, it’s complicated. To contain and control such power is tremendously complex: The ITER tokomak alone will have more than a million parts. It’s also supremely expen-sive: The latest estimate puts the cost for ITER’s tokomak and other building at $21 billion. It took seven of the world’s most technologically savvy powers — the U.S., the European Union, Russia, Japan, China, India and South Korea, which in total represent 34 countries and half the world’s

population — to join together to create and pay for ITER.

One of the biggest problems with a massive fusion reaction is that there’s no material that can contain it.

“Fusion recreates the power and the conditions inside the sun, and all that energy is very hot: 100 million degrees,” Painter says. “It can’t be contained in any material.”

So how do ITER’s top scientists plan to control such a big, hot mess?

“They’re going to contain it with high magnetic fields. They’re going to levitate it in space and contain it” inside the toko-mak (estimated to weigh 23,000 tons when finished — about the weight of three Eiffel Towers).

coming in for a LandingThis is where researchers such as

Painter, who got his master’s degree in engineering from MIT, enter the picture. Painter’s an expert in high magnetic fields and magnets that use superconducting wire. (See “Superwire” on page 14.) And he’s using that expertise to tackle a unique task for ITER. He and his team at High Per-formance Magnetics intend to put a half-mile-long cable of superconducting wire inside a protective metal tube of conduit.

That’s why on most days, you’ll find him out on a barren stretch of flat, sandy

The ITER project aims to create the world’s largest tokomak (pictured right). The doughnut-shaped inner chamber is where fusion energy will be generated.

“Fusion recreates the power and the conditions inside the sun, and all that energy is very hot: 100 million degrees.”

14


terrain, not far from where airplanes take off and land. He found the perfect place to set up shop at the old Tallahassee airport, beside the city’s new airport and about six miles from the Mag Lab. “We have two buildings out there that are 800 meters (one-half mile) apart, and between them there’s what looks like a long row of fence posts, but it’s actually steel posts and steel beams.”

After they weld all the tubes of metal conduit together, they will place the one half-mile tube on the beams and pull a ca-ble of superconducting wires through it.

“When we pull the cable through, it’s best to have the tube as flat and straight as possible, so the cable doesn’t snag when we pull it.”

Painter also had to work with the state to relocate some endangered gopher tortoises from the area, before construction could begin. That took several months.

He’s done some traveling as well. He’s gone to the ITER site in south France twice, as well as to an ITER meeting in Japan.

“In Japan, we went to the forge where they actually melt the metal, and we also went to the place where they actually make the tubes. It was pretty exciting.”

earLy Lessons pay offSetting up a super-specialized, high-

tech company hasn’t been easy. He credits the Economic Development Council of Tallahassee/Leon County, a private/public partnership, for helping make his business a reality.

“If it weren’t for them, I probably would have never gotten started. They put in one of the initial proposals for us for a planning study when we were just a virtual company.”

But Painter also learned a lot about overcoming obstacles as a kid. He grew up the youngest of eight children; his dad, a steel worker, died before Painter was one.

His mom raised the family by herself.As the baby of the family, “I was spoiled

by my mom and tormented by my brothers,” he recalls fondly.

In addition to torment, one of his older brothers also inspired him to become an engineer.

“He went to Penn State extension cam-pus, and he was in the library every night until 11 o’clock, and he got straight A’s. I said, ‘Well, that’s what you’ve got to do.’ And if he could do it, I could do it.”

Today he’s trés contente that he did. “I’d encourage any young people to

consider getting into the engineering field, as an opportunity to contribute not only to their own lives but to the world in general.”

When it comes to magnet science and technology, he adds, the best is yet to come.

“I think we’re entering a golden age of magnets and materials here in Tallahassee. … This is where the future will be born.”

it’s superwire!You can think of a supercon-

ductor (and superconducting wire) as a superhero.

Like a superhero, Superwire is much stronger than regular wire. Superwire can transmit far more electricity than regular wire —10 to 100 times more! Yet supercon-ducting wire is much thinner than regular wire: only about as thick as a strand of your hair.

If kept cold enough, Superwire can also transmit electricity with no loss of power. Regular wire loses some current as heat be-cause the atoms in the wire resist the flow of electricity. But current flows through Superwire with no resistance.

There is a catch, though. Just like Superman loses his powers around kryptonite, Superwire loses its power unless it’s kept super cold. To keep Superwire cold, it’s often surrounded (or embed-ded) with liquid helium. And liquid helium is tricky and expensive to work with.

“Helium is notorious for getting through any little tiny space,” says engineer Tom Painter, an expert in building magnets that use super-conductors. “If you have even a teeny tiny crack, it will get through.”

And a helium leak is always bad news. “The whole system is rendered less useful,” Painter says, “or even inoperable.”

painter shows off a finished superconducting wire.

15


Need a word with chemist Amy McKenna of the Ion Cyclotron Resonance group here at the MagLab? You’re likely to find a jumble

of these small jars on her person. While you may suspect McKenna’s running a side business in shampoo or dubious bodily fluids, these are, in fact, legitimate accessories for a petroleomics expert.

Petroleomics is the molecular-level study of crude oil. A single drop of crude oil contains more than 30,000 different molecules, and no two oil reserves are exactly the same (depends on the reservoir conditions, and how Mother Nature “cooks and squeezes” organic matter over mil-lions of years). Fourier Transform Ion Cyclotron Resonance Mass Spectrometry, or FT-ICR MS, is the only technique in the world for analyzing such

monstrously compositionally diverse samples. The large, milky-looking jars in the photo

above contain “produced water” from an offshore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Produced water is oil-laden water that’s a byproduct of getting crude oil out of the earth’s crust. Once oil mixes with water, a fraction of the molecules are water-sol-uble and can be introduced in the environment. The chemistry of oil and water is important, not only to more efficiently produce valuable petro-leum, but also to protect the environment.

Oil-in-water emulsions cost the oil industry billions of dollars a year, and preventing stable emulsion formation (the turning of valuable oil into mayonnaise-style goo) requires some pret-ty intense molecular detective work. The small, blackish jars on the left are lab-generated oil-in-water emulsions to study the chemistry that oc-curs at the “rag layer” (where oil and water meet). To prevent emulsion formation, the oil industry requires detailed knowledge of the types of mol-ecules that stabilize emulsions and accumulate at the oil-water interface.

what is this?

Petroleomics samplesfrom the Magnet Lab in Tallahassee

oiL-in-waterIn the foreground are small jars of deposits that clog pipelines or various process-ing units; these represent the most complex samples. Samples like these are sent to the ICR team on a daily basis for characterization. By studying com-positional changes in crude oil from “soup-to-nuts” (or geologic goo to your gas tank), the ICR team provides chemical informa-tion that facilitates more efficient use of the “oil that is left” and protects the environment from harmful petroleum compounds.

BY AMY MAST

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eleMeNtarY SChool

¨ Curiosity¨ Observation¨ Love of nature

It’s important, even for very young children, to be exposed to thinking scientifically. With your child or student, pay attention to the world around you: insects, phases of the moon, airplanes overhead. What do you see? What do you hear? How do the items inside your house work?

MIddle SChool¨ Experimentalism¨ Critical thinking¨ Math skills

As kids progress to middle school, it’s important to expose them to higher-order critical thinking and an understanding of processes. Sci-ence fair projects, science-directed summer camps, tinkering with computers and mechanical assem-blies, and even cooking help kids to understand experimentation and the processes that result in a whole.

hIgh SChool

¨ Creative problem solving¨ Career ambition¨ Narrower areas of interest

High school is a great time for students to explore their interests and discover new ones. Advanced math and science courses, intern-ships, summer programs, and even a part-time job can help them refine their interests. It’s important to keep variety in the mix: A 14-year-old as-piring physician could be tomorrow’s great software developer!

College¨ Lab experience¨ Thinking independently¨ Narrowing fi eld of study

In college, students interested in science dive deep into the prin-ciples that power their field of inter-est. Exposure to a laboratory envi-ronment and to a higher-order un-derstanding of both the experimental process and the concepts behind it are key during these years.

It could be argued that scientists are born, not made (a little natural curiosity goes a long way), but exposing young students

to creative problem solving, thinking scien-tifi cally, and the rush of independence when they solve a problem can be catalysts for a fruitful career in the sciences. Here, we off er a recipe for budding experimentalists.

BY AMY MASTBUILD A SCIENTIST!cover feature

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College¨ Lab experience¨ Thinking independently¨ Narrowing field of study

In college, students interested in science dive deep into the prin- ciples that power their field of inter-est. Exposure to a laboratory envi-ronment and to a higher-order un-derstanding of both the experimental process and the concepts behind it are key during these years.

graduate SChool¨ Meeting collaborators¨ Mentorship¨ Project ownership

In graduate school, students come into their own as researchers, pursuing independent projects with the supervision of an advisor. A good advisor, along with other mentors, can help a student find a research question he or she is pas-sionate about and can help to guide the course of a student’s career.

But how do I build my own scientist?

The Magnet Lab’s Center for Integrating Research and Learning (CIRL) offers oppor-tunities for young people at all stages of their education to engage with science. Search any of the words in bold below to learn more on our website, magnet.fsu.edu.

For everyoneEvery February, the Mag-

net Lab throws open its doors to welcome the curious public to its Open House. The event offers dozens of mind-blowing demon-strations and the chance to inter-act directly with the physicists, chemists, biologists, and engi-neers who conduct research here. It’s great for ages 5 – 105.

For elementary-schoolersDoing science together, a

program held at the Tallahassee Barnes and Noble on the third Thursday of each month, offers kids a chance to conduct hands-on scientific investigation in a relaxed environment. MagLab staff can visit your school for elementary school classroom outreach, focusing on teaching kids to think scientifically, and tours for students are available here at the Magnet Lab.

For middle-schoolerssciGirls is a jointly operated,

two-week summer camp pro-

gram aimed at inspiring middle-school girls to explore science. MagLab summer Camp, also for middle-schoolers, is a one-week program for both boys and girls. Middle-school mentor-ship pairs young students from the School of Arts and Sciences with working scientists for a se-mester-long project. Classroom outreach and lab tours are also available for this age group.

For high-schoolersHigh-school internships

offer the opportunity to partici-pate directly in lab research with working scientists. The summer energy Program, hosted jointly by the Magnet Lab and the Cen-ter for Advanced Power Systems, offers middle- and high-school students an opportunity to ex-plore power grids, environmen-tally responsible power systems and renewable energy projects.

For college studentsThe research experiences

for undergraduates (REU) program offers opportunities for undergraduates from around the country to spend their summer conducting meaningful, eight-week research in physics, chem-istry, biology, engineering, geo-chemistry and materials science.

For teachersAre you responsible for in-

troducing young minds to think-ing scientifically about their world? The Magnet Lab’s re-search experiences for teach-ers (ret) program is a six-week residential program designed to provide real-world lab experi-ence to educators.

scientist spotLight

professor, University of Florida biochemistry

& Molecular biology

Magnet Lab Director of chemistry & biology

Leatherworker and small business owner

art’s Jobs

Arther edison on the world’s most successful animal (it’s not us)BY AMY MAST

A rt edison studies the world’s most-studied worm. C. elegans, a type of worm called a nematode,

is such a well-mapped little creature that scientists know the number of cells in its body: 959 in a mature animal. Nematodes are everywhere— in the dirt, in saltwater, in Arctic ice, in plants, animals, and the bodies of one out of every four people on earth. Four out of five living creatures on the planet are nematodes. To the layperson, they’re simple, generic, wormlike animals we don’t think about much. To a biologist, they’re fascinating, astonishingly diverse, and, as Edison puts it, “the most successful animal on earth.”

Edison’s group is interested in the chemicals c. elegans use to communicate with one another and with their envi-ronment, specifically in the context of development and reproduction. Research magnets help his team understand precise-ly the chemical compounds that c. elegans produce and respond to.

You’re examining a very well-studied animal model. what’s beneficial about going down what’s in some ways a well-traveled research road?

If you want to learn about something new — and my group studies chemical communication — it’s really helpful to start from a known quantity. In c. elegans, the

fate of every single cell has been mapped out from fertilization to the adult animal. Next to maybe the double helix, that map-ping is one of the significant achievements in biology in the last century. Through that, not only did we learn more about the de-velopment of a relatively complex multicel-lular animal, but also fundamental, widely applicable things like programmed cell death (apoptosis) in that study. Eventually scientists realized that cell death was an im-portant part of development, and that when that goes wrong, it’s important in cancer.

C. elegans are some remarkably adapt-able animals; they can sense and respond to their environment with an astonishing level of sophistication. If there’s abundant food available, they develop in about three and a half days; they go through their larval stages, they become adults and they repro-duce. They live for another week. In the ab-sence of food, in harsh conditions, or when they become too populous, they can sense the population and the amount of food. They can then choose an alternate pathway where they can live for months, and survive with no food at all. Both their behavior and their anatomy change accordingly. As soon as they’re put in the presence of bacteria, they go on developing and become repro-ducing adults. It’s really neat. It’s been known for about 25 years that a chemical caused that, but it was only more recently


18

identified in detail. That chemical, and another that controls mating behavior, have been really interesting places to explore.

For me, I like to stay just at the side of an excit-ing field, and play with the things nobody’s picking out yet and see how they work. Folks in my field are starting to look much more at interactions with bacteria and pathogens. There’s just this incredibly complex world of below-the-ground worms interact-ing with bacteria and fungi, and some of the bacteria are trying to kill the worms, and worms are trying to eat other bacteria and they’re all interacting with plants and plant roots and larval insects. It’s incred-ibly complicated stuff.

How does one become a biochemist doing “incredibly complicated stuff?”

Honestly, I didn’t think that I liked science, and growing up I had only the vaguest idea as to what a lab environment could be. What I liked in high school was ice hockey — and girls. I wasn’t a good student, and I had no motivation to do anything too interesting academically. Afterward, I took a year off and I did a lot of fun things. I was a river-runner, I rode my bike across the country, and I did a bunch of odd jobs. Then I went to a school called St. John’s College (in Santa Fe, New Mexico) where you just start by reading Euclid and Plato and Aristotle and reading ancient Greek. I liked it, but nothing was re-ally grabbing me yet. I didn’t know what I was doing there, so I decided to take another year off.

During that year, I became a shoe repairman, because I used to repair my ice hockey pads — I had been a goalie — and I loved repairing leather. I loved repairing shoes, and I could have stayed doing it except I guess I just realized I should go back to school. My girlfriend, who became my wife — we moved down to New Mexico so that I could go back to St. John’s for another year, but I got especially dis-tracted because I went to work in this boot-making shop, and I made some boots, and then I discovered that there was a saddlemaker who took apprentices. And I thought: Why am I even thinking about school when there’s this guy who could teach me about saddles? I quit school again and we built a cabin in

the woods with no water or electricity. And then I learned how to make saddles, and I actually got a job working at a saddle shop for three or four years. Then I ended up being a ranch manager, and we had a house with water and electricity — so my job was to take care of things, but then the main part was to fence 200 acres. I built some fencing, and it was one of the hardest jobs I’ve ever done. I dragged railroad ties with my horse, and it was really a pretty big job in some rocky and steep country. During this whole time I was a volunteer firefighter, partly just to have the radio. Once I started doing it, I really liked the emergency medicine aspect of it though, and I be-came an EMT, which I thought was really fun. Then our first daughter was born, and I think for the first time I really asked myself if I wanted to be working on a ranch for the rest of my life.

I quit the job at the ranch and became an art major at the university of Utah, with the idea of also taking a bunch of science classes and then going to med school. We’d grown up in Salt Lake City and we wanted to be close to family. I chose art because of saddlemaking and frankly, I didn’t think I could deal with science. I took all the science classes I’d need for the medical part and kind of packed them togeth-er while I was taking drawing and painting. I found two professors at the University of Utah, chemistry professors, whom I just fell in love with: Dave Grant, who turns out to be one of the great NMR scientists in the world and Bill Epstein, who did natural prod-ucts chemical communication in plants. I traveled to Southern Utah with Epstein to collect chemicals, and then we analyzed them with Grant and I real-ized: This is so much fun. I just hadn’t realized that that kind of job was out there, and you could do this. I went through sort of a difficult six months figuring out what I wanted to do. I was taking chemistry, and I was drawing (gestures to a drawing of graphene’s structure on the wall) and that turned out to be kind of the transitional piece where I realized that I was thinking about science even as I was thinking about art. So I realized I wanted to go into science and do some artistic things on the side, and I got very straight and narrow, finished up, went to grad school, got a postdoc and got a job. It’s been a really fun job, too.

what is nucLear magnetic resonance?Many people are familiar with MRI, where the soft tissue of a leg or a brain is imaged. NMR spectros-copy provides an image of a differ-ent sort — one of a molecular structure. NMR techniques are used for biological applications, like Art Edison’s, and for materials science applica-tions as well.

19

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20


PHOTOS BY DAVE BARFIELD / STORY BY AMY MAST

The Magnet Lab is full of beautiful scientific equipment, valuable infrastructure and a few nooks and crannies that are just plain weird. Many of the lab’s most interesting and impressive sights, however, can’t be seen on a tour — some ar-eas are too dangerous, too out-of-the-way, or too hard for our enterprising tour guides to explain in the time allotted. Here’s a peek at a few.

Take an alternative tour

photo essay

cooLING toWErS

cIcc WINDING ArEA

rocK LAb

cHILL rooM

EpItAXY MAcHINE LAb

21

This waterfall’s not for show. To keep them cool, resistive magnets

must be pumped with 45-degree, deionized water. The water heats up

to about 100 degrees during its brief sojourn in the magnet system; then

it’s pumped back to this cooling tower (where air and time do their

magic) before being used again.

watercooLing towers

� The�DC�Field�

Bldg.

When you’re building world-unique magnets, having a magnet

factory on hand is a pretty good idea. This area, walled off from normal

tours, is where cable-in-conduit coils (CICC) are wound. Cable-in-conduit

contains superconducting wire, which conducts electricity without

resistance when supercooled.

cicc winding

area

22

24


rock Lab

chiLLroom

The Magnet Lab relies on four chillers for the big job of keeping the biggest magnets cool. Though they use

freon, the stuff you may have heard of from your fridge at home, these machines cool a lot more than cucumbers.

Four hunded times more powerful than the A/C unit in the average home, the chillers have enough cooling en-

ergy to produce two billion ice cubes a day. (We also use this system to air-condition the entire Magnet Lab.)

� TheDC�Field

Bldg.

C�Wing,3rd�Floor

To discover how our planet and its creatures evolved, geochemists analyze the trace elements found in rocks and

fossils using high-tech machines such as the inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer seen here. Included on the desktop full of beautiful and unusual rocks in the

MagLab’s Geochemistry Department is a rare black-and-green sample of peridotite from San Carlos, New Mexico

(far right) that was ejected deep from the earth’s interior.

26


What, you don’t have one of these in your house? This Oxide Molecular Beam Epitaxy machine is capable of producing samples of scientifi cally

interesting materials (you know, things like lantha-num oxide or cuprate superconductors, the usual) in single atomic layers — that is, one atom thick. Single atomic layers of these interesting substances can be

joined to see how they interact with each other, and to manufacture experimental samples.

26

FLUX MAGAZINE Issue 8FLUX MAGAZINE Issue 8

What, you don’t have one of these in your house?

epitaXymachine

Lab

C�Wing,3rd�Floor

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Every year, more than 1,000 scientists use the lab’s magnets to explore new, exotic materials — and what they discover could just change the way we live.

One of the most promising materials MagLab scientists are studying is graphene, a substance found right in the flakes of your lead pencil. Some say graphene might one day be used to make everything from com-puter screens to airplanes.

Scientists want to know how gra-phene — a one-atom thick, honeycomb array of carbon atoms so thin it’s virtually see-through — reacts to light and different magnetic fields. To find out, they put a sam-ple of graphene inside a powerful magnet. Then they observe what happens when the graphene is subjected to different forces: electric currents, magnetic-field strengths and wavelengths of light.

Chun Ning “Jeanie” Lau, an associate

physics professor at the University of Cali-fornia at Riverside, travels more than 2,000 miles to do graphene research at the Mag-net Lab.

“Graphene is such a beautiful and unique material,” Lau says. “It’s stronger than steel yet softer than silk. It’s trans-parent like plastic, but conducts heat and electricity better than copper. It’s the thin-nest single-atomic-layer elastic membrane that’s also a conductor and in which elec-trons ‘lose’ their mass. It’s a Nobel-winning material but is produced by every school kid every day.”

Other MagLab scientists are fascinated with graphene, too, including condensed-matter physicists Dimitry Smirnov and Zhiqianq “Jason” Li, and postdoctoral as-sociate Jean-Marie Poumirol.

“A lot of companies are trying to do re-search to make graphene commercial,” Li

says. “One of the first applications could be a large area display … television, computer, maybe billboard.”

That’s one reason scientists want to know how this material interacts with dif-ferent kinds of light. One way to discover that is to shoot laser beams at a graphene sample.

Researchers also want to find out how the electrons in graphene behave in the presence of magnetic fields. To generate a magnetic field, scientists send an electric current through a wire coil, then observe the variations of the graphene’s resistance.

Curious to see what a graphene experi-ment at the lab actually looks like? Here’s a photo tour of an experiment that was car-ried out in Lab 3 of the Resistive Magnet Wing. Lab 3 has a special magnet that al-lows scientists to shoot laser beams at their sample.

DaTa /DeconstructeD

magLab research

BY KATHLEEN LAUFENBERG

How researchers use powerful magnets to learn about materials

29


2. THE PROBEA probe is a long, stick-like

device with a test sample (in this case, graphene) mounted

on it. The probe must be slowly lowered into the center of the

magnet. In this picture, the graphene chip is attached at

the right end of the probe.

1. THE SAMPLEThis graphene sample is so

tiny, it’s invisible to the eye. It’s been mounted on a computer chip — that’s the long triangu-

lar part. The chip is carefully attached to the probe.

30


4. THE MAGNET This is where all the action takes

place: inside the magnet. This magnet rises through an opening cut through the fi rst-fl oor ceiling, which allows scientists to access it. The magnet is inside the shiny barrel-shaped container, so you can’t actu-ally see it.

Directly below the magnet, polarizers — optical devices that cause light to vibrate in a particular direction — have been lined up. Scientists shoot a laser beam through the polarizers, which direct the light into the sample of graphene inside the magnet.

3. READYING THE EXPERIMENTScientist Jean-Marie Poumirol is now

ready to insert the probe (with the graphene sample attached to it) into the magnet’s bore (the space inside the magnet where the ex-periment takes place). The bore is at the very center of the magnet, where the magnetic fi eld strength is strongest. In this photo, Poumirol is about to begin to insert the probe into the magnet, which is actually on the fl oor below him. He’s opening a valve that will allow him to very slowly lower the probe into the magnet.

31


6. WATCHING THE DATA COMPILEPutting the probe into the magnet’s ex-

perimental space and making sure everything is in place can take a half-day — sometimes longer. The experiment itself can last a week or more. But once everything is ready and the experiment is running, Poumirol checks the data being collected using a computer and other equipment.

When the experiment is fi nally completed, researchers may spend months analyzing their fi ndings before determining what to tackle next.

5. OPTICAL CLOSE-UPThis is a close-up of the polarizers lined up

under the magnet. Three of the polarizing de-vices are vertically aligned; below them, a silver mirror, tilted at a 45 degree angle, redirects the laser beam through the three polarizers and into the sample of graphene inside the magnet’s bore.

The cement blocks (to the left of the polar-izers) are there to prevent accidental injuries. Laser beams can burn your skin and permanent-ly injure your eyesight. The blocks absorb any miscalculated laser beams; you can see the burn marks left behind from some slightly misdirected laser beams.

32


Other Magnet Lab Events

science cafÉA bar basement might

seem like a strange place to learn about bees or alterna-tive energy or oil spills, but the lab’s popular Science Café se-ries has proved that beer and science make for some pretty good conversation.

Science Café is held on the fi rst Tuesday of almost every month at Ray’s Steel City Sa-

loon, with the goal of provid-ing local residents with direct access to working scientists. Tallahassee’s next event — on March 6, 2012 — will feature Yang Wang, an expert in fos-sil analysis from Florida State University, where she is a pro-fessor in geochemistry. Wang, who is featured in this issue, will speak about her expedition to Tibet. Questions are welcome!

monthLy pubLic toursTake a lunchtime spin

around the Magnet Lab on the third Wednesday of every month at 11:30 a.m. Tours are informal, no reservations are required, and they typically last 35 to 45 minutes.

Visit our website to learn more about these and other events held throughout the year: www.magnet.fsu.edu

education + outreach

above Photos from last year’s Open House. There were more than 75 attractions, including: a potato launcher, the Kids Zone, the MagLev train, the shrinking quarter machine and free “Einstein” ice cream, made with liquid nitrogen.

this issue’s featured program is...

2012 Open House17 years and running

At the Magnet Lab’s Open House, we pull out all the stops and let visitors explore our world-class facility, participate in dozens of hands-on demos, and talk one-on-one with working scientists. This year’s event is on Saturday, February 18 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

This free event features something for visitors of every age: hands-on demonstrations, self-guid-ed tours, activities from our Community Classroom Consortium partners, food, and the chance to meet and chat with our scientists and other MagLab staff . It’s also a chance to do good for the commu-nity: The canned goods we collect as the unoffi cial price of admission go to America’s Second Harvest Food Bank of the Big Bend.

MAGNET LAB

www.magnet.fsu.edu/openhouse

There are many ways to experience the Magnet Lab in 2012; here are a few suggestions:

33


Last Look

RECORD BREAKERIn a three-second span on August 19, 2011, re-

searchers and engineers at the Magnet Lab’s Los Al-amos facility created a 97.4 tesla magnetic field — the highest nondestructive magnetic field in the world. The previous record, 91.4 tesla, was set in June 2011 by the Dresden High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Germany. “Tesla” is a measurement of the strength of a magnetic field; 1 tesla is equal to 20,000 times the Earth’s magnetic field.

“Years of effort by the best technical staff, engi-neers and scientists have gone into this achievement. This capability marks a significant milestone in the ability of U.S. science to unravel the complex nature of materials that our future may depend on,” said Los Alamos Pulsed Field Facility Director Chuck Mielke.

This record marks important progress toward the lab’s goal of reaching 100 tesla, an effort that

awaits further materials innovation to make possible. The project is funded by the 100 Tesla Multi-Shot Program, a joint initiative of the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy’s Office of Basic Energy Sciences.

The record-breaking field was created by up-grading the lab’s existing 85 T pulsed magnet sys-tem, previously tested to just over 89 tesla. Pulsed magnets, designed for condensed matter physics re-search, require a combination of a very large power supply and extremely high-strength materials.

Visiting scientists — dubbed users — travel from institutions around the world to conduct research at the Pulsed Field Facility. High magnetic fields are an important resource for physicists interested in studying fundamental properties of materials, from metals and superconductors to semiconductors and insulators, and extremely high fields enable insight into ever subtler phenomena. This magnet will be available for user research at 92 tesla.

at LeftThe 100 T multi-shot magnet pro-gram achieved a 97.4 tesla magnetic field on August 19. The magnet is powered by a 1.43 gigawatt motor generator.

above rightA side view of the magnet system.

1800 E. paul Dirac Drive tallahassee, FL 32310-3706

(850) 644-0311(850) 644-8350

magnet.fsu.edu

Issue 8Non-Profit

OrganizationU.S. Postage

PAIDTallahassee, FLPermit No. 55

Flux is supported by the National Science Foundation and the state of Florida

on the coverUsing construction paper, artists on the Flux team createda miniature display of scientific objects to go along with the “Build a Scientist” feature on page 16.

Flux, issue 8 (February 2012)

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Transcript of Flux, issue 8 (February 2012)