Tag: Magnetism

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Marble by petro c. k.

big blue marble
another turn
for the steelie

by petro c. k.

It shocked people earlier this year when news circulated that scientists calculated that the earth’s inner core is reversing its rotation in relation to the earth’s rotation of the crust. Don’t worry, this is fine. The solid metal core inside the earth spins cushioned by the liquid molten magma layer, with calculations showing that the speed of its rotation is independent of the rotation of the outer core. New research suggests every 35 years or so the inner metal ball slows down, stops, then switches direction. This 70-year cycle may explain corresponding differences to the earth’s magnetic fields and the length of the days.

In the game of marbles, solid metal marbles are called “steelies” and based on the author’s childhood, larger ones are especially prized.

Further reading:

‘Earth’s inner core may be reversing its rotation’, 2023, Science News: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/earth-inner-core-reverse-rotation

‘Multidecadal variation of the Earth’s inner-core rotation’, 2023, Y. Yang & X. Song, Nature Geoscience: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-022-01112-z

Author bio:

petro c. k. is a temporal being living on a spinning rock in a vast universe who writes tiny haiku about infinitesimally small moments of time. You can catch up with petro on Twitter here: @petro_ck

Check out other sciku by petro c. k. here: ‘Saturn’s Moons’, ‘Young Star’, and ‘Giggling’.

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Sun Trails by Joshua St. Claire

magnetic lines of force
radiating from the sun
contrails

by Joshua St. Claire

The movement of the charged particles of the sun’s plasma creates a powerful and complex magnetic field. The origin and evolution of the field is still an active area of research, but it’s proven to have an impact on the Earth. The periodicity of the intensity of the sun’s magnetic field has a demonstrable impact to the climate of Earth and solar flares pose a risk to electronics, as demonstrated by the Carrington Event of 1859.

Recently, stories circulated in the media saying that “a piece of the sun has broken off.” While these headlines were sensational, these observations underscore the fact that much of what happens in the sun and, by extension, other stars remains a mystery.

Further reading:

‘A Piece of the Sun Has Broken off and Formed a Strange Crown-like Vortex over It!’, The Weather Channel: https://weather.com/en-IN/india/space/news/2023-02-10-piece-of-sun-broke-off-and-formed-crown-like-vortex-over-it

‘Understanding the Magnetic Sun’, NASA: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/understanding-the-magnetic-sun

‘The Carrington Event: History’s greatest solar storm’, Space.com: https://www.space.com/the-carrington-event

Author bio:

Joshua St. Claire is an accountant who works as a financial executive for a large non-profit in rural Pennsylvania, USA. His work in haiku and related forms has been published broadly. He was included in the 2022 Dwarf Stars Anthology, and he is the winner of the 2022 Gerald Brady Memorial Senryu Award.

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One-Word Haiku by Mark Gilbert

monopole

By Mark Gilbert

Similarly to the way that electrical charge is either positive or negative, magnetism generates both ‘north’ and ‘south’ poles. However, although single electrical charges are common (for example, a sodium ion, or an electron) a single magnetic pole has never been experimentally detected. Such an entity, a magnetic monopole, was first proposed by Pierre Curie in 1894, and its existence is predicted by various theoretical models of the universe. The search for such a monopole continues.

Like the elusive elementary particle, this minimalist haiku requires no content other than the monopole itself. It is up to the reader whether to supply the second, opposite, pole, through their own imagination, and therefore to balance the poem, or to decide that the single monopole cannot exist, leaving the haiku as a purely theoretical or imaginary quirk. I hope this may give an insight into the kind of conflicts suffered by theoretical physicists.

Further reading/watching:
‘Magnetic Monopole’, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_monopole

‘Why Are There No Magnetic Monopoles? Inflation and The Monopole Problem’, Chris Pattison, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_Og9LI4PPM

Author bio:
Originally a chemist, Mark Gilbert is based in the UK and enjoys writing short poetry and prose. He has recently been published in Heterodox Haiku Journal, Five Fleas, Under the Basho and Horror Senryu Journal. You can connect with him on Twitter at @MarkgZero.