From time to time, I experience something of a voltage dip in my brain. The net result is a weird question suddenly washing through my thoughts.
This happened only a moment ago.
What, I wondered, would happen
if magnetism suddenly failed and vanished for good everywhere?
I imagined all my fridge
magnets, family photos, scribble drawings, and my shopping list abruptly
sloughing to the floor. The majority of
electrical systems would collapse at once.
Fans, pumps, and most appliances would become inert. My kitchen knives—presently held on display
by a magnetic bar affixed to the wall—would clatter to the counter below. Electric cars would fail at once. All others would soon follow.
No planes.
No trains.
Bigger yet, the magnetic field
produced by the molten iron in the Earth’s core would no longer protect us from
cosmic radiation and from the bombardment of charged particles emitted by the
Sun. And, of course, compasses would have
no lines of flux to align with.
I need to say this. Life without magnetism would suck.
Up next: What if water ran uphill
instead of downhill?
—Mitchell Hegman
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