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Magnetic Aluminum
I just wanted to comment on this as it has been on my mind.
Aluminum is Paramagnetic. This means that it is attracted to a magnetic field when placed in the field's influence. However, that attraction is normally very, very weak.
Without going into a lot of detail on the various spin states and electrical bonding that holds things together, I would like to draw attention to the lattice structure of Aluminum as compared to that of Iron.
Iron has a Cubic Body-Centric structure:
Aluminum has a Cubic Face - Centric structure:
So you can see rather quickly that 9 atoms make up the cube in the Iron but 14 are used for Aluminum.
Now lets imagine, that each of the four corners of atoms are magnetically aligned. That is, all of the electrons are orbiting those 8 atoms in the same direction. For the sake of argument, we will say that from the top down, those orbits are all Clockwise. Since the electrons have a negative electrical charge, this means the resulting magnetic field B from all of those orbits will be facing up. Now, looking at the Iron first, and only taking one 9 atom cube, we can see that we have what amounts to four vertical dipoles on each corner. If we imagine the magnetic field from each of those four vertical corners, we will see that at the center, midpoint between the four corners, the flux from all four must be flowing the other way. Therefore the 9th atom will be inverted to the other 8. This gives us an 8 to 1 ratio in favor of the B vector alignment and a reasonably good use of the space within the cube to reinforce those fields. If we stack these cubes up we can see that the field becomes reinforced.
Now let's look at the Aluminum. Using the same orientation as Iron for the 8 corners, we find a distortion of the magnetic field along the top of the cube. This is because in order to enter the face centered atom, the flux must spread out early instead of curving nicely to the cube center. But we will imagine that the top face and bottom face both have their B vectors pointing down. But how are the other four face centered atoms oriented? They to will be facing down. So in this case, we have an 8 to 6 ratio. This lattice structure creates a situation when stacked together were long walls of diamagnetic vertical layers are produced through the centers of these 8 corner pillars. So when a big 3D section of this material is looked at, you have what looks like long square vertical tubes of diamagnetic walls with a net value of 6 with round pillars of paramagnetic material in the square tubes with a net value of 8. At least that is what it would look like if it were near 0°K. In reality, those tubes and pillars are wiggling and squirming all over the place, expanding and contracting as all part of the thermal energy exchanges between atoms.
So what would have to happen here, to get a larger net ratio? Let's focus on just two of these Aluminum cubes stacked on top of each other. If you look at just the face atoms for a moment, of the two stacked cubes you will see that familiar 8:1 ratio in a Body Centered arrangement - exactly like the Iron. Leaving the top and bottom faces with B vectors pointing down, if we flip those other 4 faces up, then we have the same configuration as Iron with the added feature of the other 4 atoms also being aligned giving us the 12:2 ratio in favor of paramagnetism. Getting those atoms to flip that way is a tall order. The electrodynamics that hold the material in shape would need to be overpowered and the lattice bonds would then be magnetic instead of electric. Also, extra stress would be present between the corners and the vertical faces that should theoretically result in an increase in volume. This could be measured by liquid displacement if enough material were available and the measurements were accurate enough.
In the real world. our metals are not monocrystalline. They are instead made up of many little groups that get sent off in different angles by impurity atoms and weird atomic isotopes and inverted nuclei spins etc. It takes a lot of effort and time to precisely grow 'single crystal' as it is called in the industry. When conditions exist that allow these groups of atoms to reorient themselves to align with magnetic fields, we get Weiss Domains. When the magnetic field is removed, the groups return to their natural state - that is paramagnetism. If they do not return to their natural state, but instead prefer to stay in the new, magnetically bound lattice - that is ferromagnetism.
David, if you take two small pieces of that Aluminum, do they stick together with no other magnetic field present? (be sure they are not statically charged). If so, then I would say you have magnetized the Aluminum. If not, then perhaps you have discovered a way to cause Giant Paramagnetism in your Aluminum.
I just wanted to comment on this as it has been on my mind.
Aluminum is Paramagnetic. This means that it is attracted to a magnetic field when placed in the field's influence. However, that attraction is normally very, very weak.
Without going into a lot of detail on the various spin states and electrical bonding that holds things together, I would like to draw attention to the lattice structure of Aluminum as compared to that of Iron.
Iron has a Cubic Body-Centric structure:
Aluminum has a Cubic Face - Centric structure:
So you can see rather quickly that 9 atoms make up the cube in the Iron but 14 are used for Aluminum.
Now lets imagine, that each of the four corners of atoms are magnetically aligned. That is, all of the electrons are orbiting those 8 atoms in the same direction. For the sake of argument, we will say that from the top down, those orbits are all Clockwise. Since the electrons have a negative electrical charge, this means the resulting magnetic field B from all of those orbits will be facing up. Now, looking at the Iron first, and only taking one 9 atom cube, we can see that we have what amounts to four vertical dipoles on each corner. If we imagine the magnetic field from each of those four vertical corners, we will see that at the center, midpoint between the four corners, the flux from all four must be flowing the other way. Therefore the 9th atom will be inverted to the other 8. This gives us an 8 to 1 ratio in favor of the B vector alignment and a reasonably good use of the space within the cube to reinforce those fields. If we stack these cubes up we can see that the field becomes reinforced.
Now let's look at the Aluminum. Using the same orientation as Iron for the 8 corners, we find a distortion of the magnetic field along the top of the cube. This is because in order to enter the face centered atom, the flux must spread out early instead of curving nicely to the cube center. But we will imagine that the top face and bottom face both have their B vectors pointing down. But how are the other four face centered atoms oriented? They to will be facing down. So in this case, we have an 8 to 6 ratio. This lattice structure creates a situation when stacked together were long walls of diamagnetic vertical layers are produced through the centers of these 8 corner pillars. So when a big 3D section of this material is looked at, you have what looks like long square vertical tubes of diamagnetic walls with a net value of 6 with round pillars of paramagnetic material in the square tubes with a net value of 8. At least that is what it would look like if it were near 0°K. In reality, those tubes and pillars are wiggling and squirming all over the place, expanding and contracting as all part of the thermal energy exchanges between atoms.
So what would have to happen here, to get a larger net ratio? Let's focus on just two of these Aluminum cubes stacked on top of each other. If you look at just the face atoms for a moment, of the two stacked cubes you will see that familiar 8:1 ratio in a Body Centered arrangement - exactly like the Iron. Leaving the top and bottom faces with B vectors pointing down, if we flip those other 4 faces up, then we have the same configuration as Iron with the added feature of the other 4 atoms also being aligned giving us the 12:2 ratio in favor of paramagnetism. Getting those atoms to flip that way is a tall order. The electrodynamics that hold the material in shape would need to be overpowered and the lattice bonds would then be magnetic instead of electric. Also, extra stress would be present between the corners and the vertical faces that should theoretically result in an increase in volume. This could be measured by liquid displacement if enough material were available and the measurements were accurate enough.
In the real world. our metals are not monocrystalline. They are instead made up of many little groups that get sent off in different angles by impurity atoms and weird atomic isotopes and inverted nuclei spins etc. It takes a lot of effort and time to precisely grow 'single crystal' as it is called in the industry. When conditions exist that allow these groups of atoms to reorient themselves to align with magnetic fields, we get Weiss Domains. When the magnetic field is removed, the groups return to their natural state - that is paramagnetism. If they do not return to their natural state, but instead prefer to stay in the new, magnetically bound lattice - that is ferromagnetism.
David, if you take two small pieces of that Aluminum, do they stick together with no other magnetic field present? (be sure they are not statically charged). If so, then I would say you have magnetized the Aluminum. If not, then perhaps you have discovered a way to cause Giant Paramagnetism in your Aluminum.
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