Boffins build magnetic field cloak 'wormhole', could help MRI scanners Alvaro Sanchez, (left), with Carles Navau, and Jordi Prat-Camps (right). Scientists have created what is being dubbed a 'wormhole' that can split a magnetic field and lead to better MRI scanning. The wormhole allows a magnetic field to be transported across space but it is not the kind of cosmic tunnel popularised by …
They don't, apparently. They've only theoretically demonstrated the theoretical possibility of doing something.
The word "supraconductor" is generally a tell-tale sign. Room-temperature supraconductors don't exist yet. The word "meta-material" is another sign. I don't anything meta exists either.
But when they do, it'll work. Promise !
They present pictures of the device in the supplementary information–it looks like a classic MacGyver build, lots of gaffer tape etc. There is measured data in the main paper and in the supplementary info.
They use a superconductor that works at liquid nitrogen temperatures. Not a problem for the MRI bods as their machines work with the way colder liquid helium.
Whether something is meta or not depends on the wavelength/frequency you are working at. For MRI its fairly easy.
Wikipedia would tend to disagree about there being no such thing as real meta-materials: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamaterial
The first few words of the article "Scientists have created..." point towards something real having been built rather than a number of funky equations involving the vital <magic happens here> step.
Rosie
@pascal.
Firstly the guts of MRI's are cryogenically cooled anyway. So RT superconductors are not really relevant.
Secondly direct quote from the abstract of the paper. My emphasis
Here we construct and experimentally demonstrate a magnetostatic wormhole. Using magnetic metamaterials and metasurfaces, our wormhole transfers the magnetic field from one point in space to another through a path that is magnetically undetectable.
What to do if you find yourself stuck in a crack in the ground underneath a giant boulder you can't move with no hope of rescue:
Consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far.
Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far (which, given your current circumstances, seems more likely):
Consider how lucky you are that it won't be troubling you much longer.
I think that definitely can be listed under the "not exactly helpful" column. Horrible things MRI scanners (I've been in two so far) - if you want to experience the feeling put yourself in a old steel rubbish bin and have and angry dwarf randomly whack the outside with a cricket bat. And if you move you have to restart the process........
Not sure why the cricket bat wielder must be vertically challenged but adds to the overall strangeness which you will also feel.
I maintain nonetheless that yin-yang dualism can be overcome.
With sufficient enlightenment we can give substance to any
distinction: mind without body, north without south, pleasure
without pain. Remember, enlightenment is a function of willpower,
not of physical strength.
—Chairman Sheng-ji Yang,
“Essays on Mind and Matter”
Instead of "wormhole" use "tunneling" instead as that's closer to the effect, aside from the fact that it's not quantum tunneling, more like channeling, but not spirit channeling,.... Of fuck it. It's all PFM [Pure Fucking Magic].
Actually, there's nothing quantum about it, to my mind. Just macroscopic sandwich of two materials.
One of the less explored approaches to this is the use of Muons to catalyze fusion at much lower temperatures than normal methods.
Unfortunately the short half lives and energy costs of making more of them using hardware not tuned to the task makes the process expensive.
It has been suggested magnetic monopoles could also work, but none have existed.
Until now.
That is a long way from being possible but it might work.
Interesting idea, thanks for sharing.
I did read somewhere that graphene doped with lithium hydride could be a possible RTSC candidate, under high pressure any hydrogen present might serve as a catalyst for proton pairing which would then induce electron pairing due to the superconducting proximity effect.
The low Jc might not be as bad an issue as scientists think, as the field is spread out over a large surface area much as a large pipe can carry a lot of water (sorry my analogies suck)
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