Magnetic Personality

We spent the morning touring the largest magnetic lab in the world: The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory. For any geeks in the crowd, here goes:

****Decades ago a mechanism was proposed that described a quantum phase transition to an insulating ground state from a semi-metal (excitonic insulator, or EI) using very similar mechanics to those found in the BCS description of superconductivity. The discovery of this transition to an EI in InAs/GaSb quantum wells is striking not only for the long-sought experimental realization of

important physics, but also the presence of recently proposed topological behavior.****

Good luck with that! Much of the tour was a little more understandable, but not much more. I think we asked once "what's that used for"? and we didn't understand the answer so we just opted to look at big equipment. To make it simple, they house a magnet containing 45 Tesla of power (google it). Magnet research is being used to improve everything from materials, energy and medicine. The lab is funded by the National Science Foundation and partners with the Los Alamos Lab in New Mexico, which built a magnet producing 100 Tesla. To keep this all running, they use $300K to $500K of electricity a month!

The early afternoon was spent reading in the air-conditioned Airstream, because sun and temps in the 80s. Not complaining.