The magnetic mystery
Discovery
BBC
4.3 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 4 March 2023
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Magnets are inside loads of everyday electronic kit - speakers, motors, phones and more - but listener Lucas is mystified. What, he wonders, is a magnetic field?
Our sleuths set out to investigate the mysterious power of magnets, with the help of wizard physicist Dr Felix Flicker, lecturer in physics at Cardiff University and author of the The Magick of Matter, and materials scientist Dr Anna Ploszajski, author of Handmade.
They cover the secrets of lodestones, naturally occurring magnetic rocks, how to levitate crystals, frogs and maybe even people.
Matthew Swallow, the Chair of the UK Magnetics Society, explains why magnets make the best brakes for rollercoasters, and Dr Ploszajski explains how magnetically-induced eddy currents are used to sort through our recycling.
Finally, Dr Flicker persuades Adam and Hannah that to really understand magnetic fields you have to leave classical physics behind, and go quantum. So our sleuths take a leap into the strange subatomic realm.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Before you listen to this BBC podcast, I'd like to introduce myself. |
| 0:03.6 | My name's Stevie Middleton and I'm a BBC Commissioner for a load of sport podcasts. |
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| 0:12.2 | pundits and the biggest sport stars. |
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| 0:35.8 | At normal transactions, some kind of cyber attack on a bank. |
| 0:40.8 | Ten of millions of dollars. |
| 0:42.8 | Something I don't think anybody has seen before. |
| 0:44.8 | The cyber criminal group. |
| 0:46.6 | From the BBC World Service. |
| 0:48.2 | The Lazarus Heist is back for season two. |
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| 0:56.1 | Hello and welcome to the curious cases of Rutherford and Fry on Discovery for the BBC. |
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... |
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