This combined with the Large Hadron Collider will surely destroy the earth. Pity, I was curious who would win the US presidential election.

newgalactic

I can see the headlines now.

"World's Most Powerful Magnet Pummelled by Flocks of Disoriented Migrating Geese."

Kaiser-Machead on the Edge

@badhatharry: Umm...it sounds like you could use this to find loose battleships at the beach.

bosskev

Dr. Octavius? Oh no! I hope it isn't self-sustaining!

whiteknight

Can I use this to find loose change at the beach?

badhatharry

Keep your credit cards away from this fscker.

Xavoc

I had to read that twice to realize I don't understand at all what this could be for... sounds cool though and I hope the technicians are allowed to play "hey can you throw me you keys" ZAZING-Smash jokes every now and then.

McLucky

@bosskev: But will those battleships have loose change on them?

badhatharry

"You have probably heard stories about patient injuries or death occurring when someone introduces a heavy metal object into the same room as an MRI machine"

Uh, actually... no. I never heard of this. Great, thanks Gizmodo... one more thing to add to my Woody Allen-esk phobia list.

nystreetfilms

sure they say its for better MRIs and super power lines but really it just attracts hurricanes as leverage for more government aid.

im_back

There's a new contest in town besides that dumb election. Who will kill us first? The Magnet (Blue) or the Hadron Collider (Independant)?

e-friend

Yay! another disaster creating machine!

rob356

Does it rip the iron out of your blood vessels? That would be exciting, to say the least.

Jones Foyer

@nystreetfilms: Just make sure you stay damn far away from MRI machines if you have an implant. Imagine the feeling when that piece of metal stuck to your skull / hip / penis starts to carry a current.

Mikael

@badhatharry: Probably not. However, as my Castro Street brethren can attest, they will be loaded with loose sailors.

bosskev

Screw the puny collider, this will end the world ...

AllThingsWireless

uhhh, could we delete every copy of WINDOWS with this? huh? huh?

se.blackheart

The original article in IEEE Spectrum Online should be read, as it is full of interesting tidbits:

"Lorentz forces-the electromagnetic push on electrons that attempts to force them in a direction perpendicular to the flow of current."

"Enough energy is transferred during those 2 seconds to raise the magnet's temperature from the cryogenic cold of liquid nitrogen to nearly 200 °C. It takes an hour to cool the magnet enough to start another round of pulses."

"Several ingredients in the secret sauce will let this magnet snap back where others have simply snapped. The magnet is made up of nine nested coils of wire. At the heart of the two innermost coils, where Lorentz forces create pressures 30 times as great as those at the bottom of the ocean, researchers have placed state-of-the-art nanoparticle wire composed of 82 percent copper and threaded through with silver strands no more than a few hundred atoms across. The copper-silver combination is stronger than either metal alone by a factor of 100."

joeshit

has noone here seen lost? :)

Sticky230

Guess I won't be taking my iPod with me to Orlando...

dna

Stay away from this sucker if you have braces! :)

Evangelion

@se.blackheart: O GOD I HOPE SO!!!

Wess

Won't this attract all the asteroids in the solar system directly to Earth?

BiZarRroBALlmeR

Now if they could only use it to target wives credit cards...

professor

@BiZarRroBALlmeR: That's what Geek Squad is for:

+ Watch video

Git Em SteveDave is starlost

Remember, you will have 108 minutes before you must push the button. Congratulations, until your replacements arrive the future of the project is in your hands. On behalf of the Degroots, Alvar Hanso, and all of us at the Dharma Initiative, thank you. Namaste, and good luck.

frigg

I grew up in tallahassee and the maglab will only accelerate the apocalypse through boredom... seriously the lamest field trip to go on in tallahassee, although that article makes it seem a lot more exciting.

GBMassAve

@nystreetfilms: Seriously, you've never seen Jet Li disarm the bad guy by turning on the MRI machine in "The One?" (OK, so the bad guy was Jet Li too, but you get the image).

Right then. When the NHMFL pulls the LHC through the Earth's crust, creating a massive tunnel between Geneva and Tallahassee, causing a catastrophic collapse of major portions of the sea floor while creating a black hole deep inside the planet, we'll see who's laughing then.

Auld_Lang_Ziety

@Mikael:
why would someone have a metal implant in their penis?

drewdoog

@drewdoog: Someone isn't familiar with the wonderful horrors of genital modification.

Amstrad

Put a mouse in that field, they got mental and run round in tight circles.
Flip the field and they start running in the opposite direction :D

xanderbeedle

Can it be used to deflect the fiery debris from an unmanned NASA launch as it explodes mere seconds after liftoff? 'Cause there are probably a couple dozen people who might have liked to have one of these installed near their favorite parking spaces back in 1997.

Purple Dave

@McLucky: Welcome to the club.

TM-Oliveira

But the question I have: Is it REALLY the most powerful ever made? You really think it's stronger than the Z-Machine Magnet Los Alamos played with decades ago? I kind of doubt it, but I don't know or can't say exact numbers.

OctaviaPriam

@DNA it is not in Orlando. It is in Tallahassee (which is the capitol of FL. Just some FYI for everyone who thinks Orlando or Miami is the capitol). I can already see it now, Bobby Bowden will be using this thing for one of his trick plays.

verticalgambit

I shudder to think about the scene from X-Men, where Magneto pulls the excess iron from the security guard's blood.......

Z00medU

they should point that towards a random direction, flick the switch and watch the RUSH of cars, boats, airplanes, helicopters, computers, ufos, electronics, robots, kids with braces and people with metal plates in their skulls... all FLYING at this thing, at once.

this could make epic youtube material

SleepingMartyr

... my road raging friends... this may be the key to salvation for gridlock... just add this... [www.gizmag.com]

ANoel

I would like to see the grin on the face of the person in charge when the first emo applicant comes through the door. Right this way please....

grubish1

Yep, wiped my credit cards working on a big mag. Only once! I learned my lesson. ;-) The thing also magnetized my Swiss army knife which actually made it kinda handy for picking up tiny screws.

I wonder though, is this new magnet as powerful as "The Magnificent Magical Magnet of Santa Mesa"? That thing would drag cars around.

biostuart

So, if we survive the black hole created by that Particle collider launching in 8 days (forgot the name), we can attack this magnet to it, and suck all the iron and cobalt in the universe to our planet!

Daegalus

Heh, My family are great friends with Greg Boebinger. My dad is the lab fellow at NHMFL New Mexico and, when Greg was there, he worked with my dad a lot. They actually shared offices. I in the building adjacent to NHMFL NM at LANL, but I go i'm in there all the time asking my dad and his colleagues questions. Interesting work.
Anyway, I just thought it was really cool to see this. I've been to NHMFL Florida a few times, but my dad is out there all the time working on projects with them.

-Tachyon-

And somewhere in the world, Jamie Hyneman weeps with joy.

Well, provided the man(-bot?) actually displays emotions.

ThatShortGuy

I hope none of the techs have tattoos.

theblackdog

Park your car far, but far away from this thing!

ddtx2

@theblackdog:
Mythbusters disproved the rumor that powerful magnets (specifically MRIs) can react with any iron-based pigments in tattoos (probably the worst to have, iron-oxide, is illegal for use as a tattoo pigment anyways). Besides, if a tattoo could cause problems, so would other sources of iron. Such as the hemoglobin in your red blood cells. Stand next to a sufficiently powerful magnet, and it should be able to rupture all of your red blood cells even as you're drawn towards it. Then again, a magnet that powerful is likely to crush you with all those cars that suddenly come flying towards it.

Purple Dave

@Purple Dave: The iron in your blood is not ferromagnetic.

Git Em SteveDave is starlost

AWESOME! Are boobs magnetic?

Andrewpetty

@Andrewpetty: YES!

Also, how awesome is this? Someday we will build a magnet big enough to interrupt earth's natural magnetic poles, causing a devastating tilt in the earths axis resulting in an extreme planetwide ice age that will last for thousands of years! it wont be this magnet, but someday...

pevans34

I bet they could make some nice speakers with one of these

videoCWK

@videoCWK: I think that makes us audio geeks. My first thought was "I'll bet this could push a 500 foot driver!"

m4ximusprim3

@Git Em SteveDave is starlost:
No, but it _is_ diamagnetic, meaning it will be repulsed by any applied magnetic field. Diamagnetism is generally too weak to really notice, but with a magnet that strong...perhaps it will be strong enough to notice.

Purple Dave

@SleepingMartyr: But of course, there will be so many steal boats and airplanes around for them to be included.

(think fiberglass & aluminum)

unspellable

@Purple Dave: Oh I know, that episode definitely did come to mind. It was funny to watch the box of their custom ink fly out of Kari's hands when they got near the MRI.

theblackdog

@Sticky230: LMAO - I was thinking the same thing. :D

CapitalC

"...and in case of any problems, Desmond here has the shutdown key on a chain around his neck. Any questions?"

leMel