Application of Magnetic Fields in Navigation Magnets and Magnetic Fields play a major role in navigation. There is a very logical and fascinating explanation to this. It can be explained through physics. All magnets have something called a magnetic field. The magnetic field is the area around a magnetic within which the magnetic force acts. A magnet has two poles, the North Pole and the South Pole. The way these poles work is very fascinating. When two magnets meet each other with two of the same poles facing each other, the repel, but when two magnets meet each other with two if the opposite poles facing each other, they pull themselves together. Similarly, the Earth also has a magnetic field, This magnetic field is a bit more confusing than the magnetic field of a bar magnet, but the main idea is that the Earth also has a North Pole and a South Pole, but it isn’t that simple. The geographical North Pole is actually the magnetic South Pole, and the geographical South Pole, is actually the magnetic North Pole. These poles rotate every few hundred thousand years. The reason that this is important is that the magnetic poles of the Earth are actually capable of attracting real magnets. The compass is a simple device that uses a free magnet, in which the North Pole of the compass attracts to the (magnetic) South Pole of the Earth, or the (geographical) North Pole of the Earth. The compass pioneered modern navigation, and the same concept is still being used in navigation to this day, in so many other ways. Application of Ferro Fluids in medicine and technology Ferro Fluids are water or oil based fluids that consist of Ferro magnetic substances, coated so that they don’t clump together. They have many practical applications in the real world. They were invented by a NASA engineer, Steve Papell in the 1960s, who intended to transport rocket fuel through space using magnets. Although that didn’t work, Ferro Fluids have proven themselves useful in other ways. Ferro Fluids are used in technology and devices, because they can seal things together very efficiently when they are close to a magnet. Ferro Fluids are used in Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) as contrast agents. This means that the Ferro Fluids improve the visibility of the internet body structures in the MRI scan. Have you ever wondered why some people claim that you shouldn’t use magnets around monitors? That’s because CRT Monitors use magnets (in some cases, Ferro Fluids) to project images as pixels. Using magnets around them can potentially attract the Ferro Fluids or magnets inside the monitor, and ruin the projection and display. Speakers use Ferro Fluids as dampeners, to prevent echo and vibrations. Ferro Fluids can potentially be used to move medicine to parts inside the body, which would be a breakthrough in medicine. Ferro Fluids could potentially be used in Cancer Treatments. It is hypothesized that if the Ferro Fluids seep into a cancer cell, and are exposed to a magnetic field, they can heat up and kill the cell. Although this hasn’t been proven successful yet, it could work. In some neurological disorders, the neurotransmitters or vesicles are unable to travel all the way through the synaptic cleft, and thus, never reach the post-synaptic cell. Some studies suggest that Ferro Fluids can help the neurotransmitters travel all the way, which mean that it can potentially help people cope with neurological disorders. I would like to explore the applications of Ferro Fluids through lab experiments and simulations carried out on our computers. Personally, I think reading and watching videos about something this interesting, just kills the interest in it. I think that it would be a lot more interesting if we learnt this in the form of experiments with proper resources that are provided by the school. It could also be interesting for everybody in the class to make presentations in pairs, and present any one application of Ferro Fluids.
