I put this under funny but the bloke that is the subject of the story sure isn't laughing. If there was a "Weird" category that's where this would go.
Magnofinger
They used magnets like this on Mythbusters once and they showed how powerful they are (although they couldn't deviate a speeding bullet).
Mmm. Those be mighty powerful magnets. I don't think that there would be many people that would be awake if I needed to call them at 3:30 in the morning.
Lesson learnt on his part do we think?
I'm pretty sure the guys on Mythbusters talked about how dangerous these types of magnets can be... People are silly.
Feel free to call me, it'll be 3 in the afternoon. Just don't expect me to arrive to help in a timely manner. :)
Speaking of strong magnets. Leiden University has a Nuclear Magnetic Resonance machine I had to perform measurements in. The department it resides in is off-limits to anything metal, since your wrist-watch might end up at the core of the machine (regardless of anything in the way like, say, your wrist).
Awesome story!!! Now how the bloody hell do you get them apart??
Pretty small as well for a magnet of that power 700lbs crapola!!
Love the follow up stuff as well - I have seen a few fingers looking like that but never with such a cool story attached to it!
Dave, good question about how to get them apart.
At primary school I took a magnet to school (it was from an old washing machine motor and pretty strong). A mate had a similar magnet and we stuck them together and couldn't get them apart. We were humiliated when one of the girls in our class was able to put them apart (she must have been a witch).
Magnetic forces are powerful and not to be fooled with.
Quite a few years back I did the electrical engineering for a relatively small (1.5 Tesla) MRI unit in the royal Hobart hospital.
This thing was basically a huge, nitrogen cooled superconductive magnet, that was so strong that when you were in the machine, all the hydrogen atoms in your bod are aligned to the magnetic field ! they then pulse another field on and off. other atoms (protons I think) absorb energy from this second field and give it back when the field is off. They detect this radiation an use it to build a pretty of of your insides.
A guy I used to know is a radiologist and he gave me a brief explaination of how it worked.
putting the thing in was a major hassle. The floor had to be reinforce to take the weight, a nitrogen cooling system had to be installed (it took 200l of liquid nitrogen a month to run it), the room had to be lined with copper plate, the windows, doors, air con vents had to be magnetically screened as well so that the machine sat in a huge faraday cage earthed with a max resistance of 0.25 ohms.
lighting it was a hassle too cause you couldnt use any form of discharge lighting(fluorescent), you could only use ordinary incandescent light bulbs, and even then you were continuously changing them because the mag fields would kill them in about 5-6 weeks
OZ
I just came across this article on magnets that are REALLY dangerous. Why are these magnets so dangerous?
Well... because these magnets are attached to crocodile's heads.
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/25/1635252&from=rss
On the MRI thing: I visited the MRI unit at Cairns once and the radiographer there had a chain and he took it into the chamber where the MRI was and it was standing horizontal which was amazing.
On a more somber note - patients that have had older aneurysm clips can't have an MRI because the clips can be pulled out from where they are and kill them. Nice eh.
Not sure if you guys get House down under, but there was an episode where they put someone in the MRI machine and he had pins in his leg, needless to say they wrecked the machine and made a mess of the chaps leg.
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