On Mar 18, 2006, at 7:04 AM, Frederick Sparber wrote:
Horace.
Isn't it a bit presumptuous to assume isotropic
magnetic fields in areas of space, based on local measurements?
We are talking about small (e.g 5x10^-10 T) galactic fields. It
doesn't much matter which way they point. The plasma from a supernova
will neutralize them with nominal loss of kinetic energy. See:
http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/G/galactic_magnetic_field.html
The magnetic field of the exploding star itself diminishes as 1/r^3,
so the dense plasma in its vicinity should handle it long enough to
allow the fast movers to escape. We do know for sure plasma escapes
supernova sufficiently to create nebula.
Magnetic Mirrors, and the Focus Coils of a CRT for example
can keep charged particles in a straight line.
Actually, they don't do very well at *plasma* confinement even at
colossal field strengths. If they did tokamak design would be easy.
Horace Heffner
