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Posted by MrJiveBoJingles on Jan-14-2007 17:19:

Some physics: ferrofluids

This video is of a liquid called a "ferrofluid," which can be made to move around in some really interesting ways due to its magnetic properties:

The "moving sculpture" is made by using electromagnets to pull the fluid around.

"A ferrofluid is a liquid that becomes strongly polarised in the presence of a magnetic field. Ferrofluids are composed of nanoscale ferromagnetic particles suspended in a carrier fluid, usually an organic solvent or water. The ferromagnetic nano-particles are coated with a surfactant to prevent their agglomeration (due to van der Waals and magnetic forces). Although the name suggests otherwise, ferrofluids do not display ferromagnetism, since they do not retain magnetisation in the absence of an externally-applied field. In fact, ferrofluids display paramagnetism, and are often referred as being "superparamagnetic" due to their large magnetic susceptibility."

"When a paramagnetic fluid is subjected to a sufficiently strong vertical magnetic field, the surface spontaneously forms a regular pattern of corrugations. This effect, known as the normal-field instability, is truly remarkable."

Pretty cool.

Wiki: Ferrofluid

Posted by MrJiveBoJingles on Jan-14-2007 17:24:

Here's a site with some more fluids that have really strange physical properties:

http://www.newscientist.com/blog/te...-of-dreams.html

I thought this one was really cool:

"Superfluids - liquids that flow without friction. They can effortlessly flow through the tiniest of cracks and will even flow up the walls of a beaker and out the top. It's possible because all the atoms in a superfluid are in the same quantum state, so they all have the same momentum and move together. To make a superfluid you must cool helium down to a couple of a degrees above absolute zero - not one to try at home. They can be used to make super-sensitive gyroscopes to test theories about gravity."

Haven't found any videos of them, though.

Posted by wizniz on Jan-14-2007 17:27:

my brand new event tr8's have ferrofluid cooled silk dome tweeters...

this is pertinant to my interests!

/brag

Posted by Gauss on Jan-14-2007 18:23:

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay...380788103127428

Wicked.